Band of Demons (The Sanheim Chronicles, Book Two) (31 page)

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.

“You aren’t supposed to be in here!” she said.

She made a move to take Kate’s arm and for a second Quinn saw a dangerous look cross his lover’s face. The nurse must have seen it too and slowly withdrew her arm.

“I’m sorry,” she said again in a tone that was decidedly less hostile. “You’ll have to leave.”

Kate had regained her composure.

“He’s my fiancée,” she said. “He was in the fire. I needed to know if he was okay.”

The nurse looked at her in alarm.

“You’re the woman from 7A,” she said. “Honey, you’re not supposed to be out of bed, much less wandering around.”

“I had to make sure he was alive,” Kate replied.

“I’m sorry,” the nurse said. “I’m going to have to take you back to your room.”

Kate looked at Quinn in desperation.

I’m sorry
, she said in his mind.
I didn’t mean to scare you.

Quinn spoke up, though each word hurt him to speak.

“Can you give us a minute?” he asked the nurse.

His eyes rested on the nurse. Quinn didn’t need to know what she was thinking, he saw the pity etched like lines on her face. The nurse glanced from Kate to Quinn.

“Just a minute,” she said.

When another nurse started to protest, the older nurse took her arm, whispered something and guided her out of the room.

“She thinks I won’t make it,” Quinn said after they left.

“Shhh,” Kate said. “You don’t have to talk.”

I love you
, he thought in his mind.
I failed you. I’m sorry
.

“Don’t be ridiculous, Quinn,” Kate said. She sat on the edge of his bed. “It was my fault. I rushed us into that, thought we could let it ride like we did last year.”

Not your fault
, Quinn responded.
I should have known he would use fire. Hell, he warned us. But I didn’t see how. I thought I could use his own arrogance against him.

“It’s okay, Quinn,” she said.  She stroked his cheek, flinching a little at the roughness of his skin, which felt like sandpaper.

How bad is it?
he asked.

She looked at him from head to toe and tried to smile when she responded.

“You’ve looked better,” she said.

Quinn laughed out loud at that, then began coughing. The sound was a dry rasp in his throat, a hacking cough. Each one caused him more pain.

 Quinn knew that in a moment the nurses would return.

I’ve looked better
, he thought.
I see you finally found your own cennad
.
Didn’t choose her for her looks either, from what I can tell.

“Be kind,” Kate said. “Her boyfriend is the Headless Horseman. They’re a match made in hell.”

Boyfriend? I believe you told the nurse I was your fiancée. Last time I checked, you hadn’t said yes yet.

Kate looked at him.

“Yes,” she said. “A thousand times, yes.”

She tried to lean in to kiss him then, but felt his pain and withdrew.

I’ll heal
, he said.
Whatever the doctors tell you, I can already feel it.

“I know,” she said.

We have to learn more about Sawyer
, he said.
I need to know what he was, what his vulnerability is.

“We will,” she said. “I remember something now, an old legend I heard as a girl. As soon as you’re well, I’ll go check it out, find out more information.”

How did you stop him? What happened?

She showed him her mind then, replaying the events in her memory.

Quinn looked at her amazed.

“You hurt them,” he said out loud.

“Yes,” she said and there was a savage glee in her voice. “They’ll be ready next time, but we can definitely harm them.”

“Good,” Quinn said and grimaced at the pain.

I still don’t understand
, he continued in her mind.
What are you, exactly?

“I’m the guardian of the dead,” she replied. “The woman in white.”

Does she have a name?
he asked. But he already knew the answer.

“Yes,” she said. “I’m a banshee.”

*****

Kieran stood on a grassy bank near a stream. He watched the water running over the rocks, felt a warm breeze on his cheek. For the first time in what felt like forever, he was happy. He sat down. Why did this place feel so familiar?

With a start, he realized this was where he first met her. He had been a child—they both were children. His father had sent him to a cousin’s country cottage for the summer, probably so he didn’t have to see him every day. Kieran had felt that sting only as long as it took him to arrive at the cottage. Once there, he was left in a state of benign neglect—able to freely roam the woods, fields, and anything else he could find. After the grimness of his life in Manchester, this was absolute heaven.

He had seen the girl on one of his extensive wanderings. She was throwing rocks in the stream and seemed a little bored. From a distance, she had looked younger than him. But when he got closer, he realized they were roughly the same age, about nine years old.

“Hi,” he said.

When she looked up, Kieran fell in love. He was only a boy—what did he know of such things—but he had read stories. He knew what “love at first sight” was, and he was sure this was it. She had a pretty round face, long, brown hair in a braid down her back, and the bluest eyes he had ever seen. He had never particularly liked romance stories. But in an instant, all that changed. Suddenly, he wanted to write his own romance story, with this girl as the damsel in distress.

She smiled when she saw him, a large grin that set everything about her aglow.

“It’s you,” she said. “The boy from my dreams. I’ve waited so long.”

She ran to him then, the way only a young child can—with open abandon—and Kieran surprised himself by running to meet her. When they reached each other, she hugged him tightly, the way he imagined his mother might have if she had lived beyond his birth. Kieran hugged her back with great joy.

The girl pulled back and looked at him.

“We’re going to spend the rest of our lives together, did you know that?” she said brightly.

Kieran didn’t, but he believed her. And though he had always been shy, the last one to speak in class, he surprised himself.

“Okay,” he said.

And the two children hugged each other on the stream bank.

The older Kieran sat in that same place, a single tear running down his face. He hadn’t thought of that day in years, maybe decades. He wasn’t even sure he remembered it clearly anymore—so much had happened since then.

“Why so maudlin, Charles?” a voice said.

Kieran didn’t look behind him. He knew who it was without turning.

“So I’m dreaming, am I?” he asked. “And I thought I asked you never to call me that.”

“My apologies. At least it’s a nice dream, isn’t it? I could have chosen a nightmare, you know.”

“I know,” Kieran replied. “Please pardon me while I throw you a fucking parade.”

The man walked in front of Kieran and looked down at him. Kieran felt a strange urge to throw mud on his immaculate suit, just to tarnish him. It was silly—dangerous, even—but he had to hold himself back nevertheless.

“Come now,” Sanheim said. “There’s no reason for hostility.”

Kieran stood up and brushed himself off. He wiped the tear from his eye, unashamed. My God, how he missed her.

“I apologize,” he said.

“Much better,” Sanheim replied. “Shall we walk?”

Kieran nodded and the two went strolling through the sunny field. He thought about the many times he had talked with Sanheim—maybe a half dozen occasions—and realized how different this scene was. Previously they always met in isolated places: a castle ruin, a graveyard, a high mountain. This idyllic field seemed oddly out of place as a meeting spot. Kieran tried to think if he had ever seen Sanheim in sunlight before, then concluded that it didn’t matter.

“Speak your mind,” Kieran said. “You’re good at that.”

“Time is nearly up,” he said. “The time for your little charade is at an end.”

“If I disappear, they’ll come looking for me,” Kieran replied.

“You can wait a few more days,” Sanheim replied. “But not too long. At some point soon, you will have to defect permanently. Sawyer already suspects you.”

“I can handle him,” Kieran replied.

“For how long, I wonder?”

“Please don’t make it seem like you actually care.”

“Oh, but I do, my friend,” Sanheim said. “You’re my ace in the hole, as they say. You’re going to make sure everything goes exactly the way I want it to.”