Give the Devil His Due (The Sanheim Chronicles, Book Three) (23 page)

“He was like nobody I’d ever known,” she said. “He was charming, sophisticated, and extremely pleased with my psychic abilities. Both he and Grace were. It was like being part of a very exciting exclusive club. I went from being an outsider to a trusted adviser. I was young, but it didn’t matter.”

“What was Grace like?”

“Lovely,” Carol responded immediately. “She was generous and kind. She always knew exactly what to say and made everyone feel uniquely valued. He never properly appreciated her. No doubt he realizes that now. She was impossible to hate. I was desperately in love with Kieran within five minutes of meeting him, but I couldn’t find it in my heart to dislike her. She was too warm, too gracious. She improved everyone around her.”

“And she didn’t mind that you, uh, fooled around with Kieran?”

“I don’t know,” Carol said. “It was the 1970s. We were deeply stupid — just look at our fashion sense. I didn’t think she minded at the time, but I wonder now. Certainly, when Kieran slept with Elyssa, she took it badly and stormed off. It was the last time I saw her alive.”

“And everything fell apart after that,” Quinn said.

“Yes,” Carol said. “Sawyer attacked, killed her, and some of us tried to put up a fight. I didn’t. I bravely ran away.”

“It saved your life,” Quinn said.

Carol abruptly stopped walking.

“If you mean it bought me a few more years, that’s true,” she said, staring intently at Quinn. “But we all live with the choices we make, Quinn. And that one haunted me until the day I died. When Kieran showed up, I wasn’t even surprised. Well, I was surprised it was him — I thought he’d died years ago — but I’d been waiting for Elyssa or Sawyer for years.”

Buzz walked up behind them.

“Got to keep moving,” he told them. “I think I spotted something following us.”

Quinn had almost forgotten how paranoid Buzz was. Yet in this place, his concern seemed legitimate. They probably were being followed. He and Carol started walking again as Buzz fell back.

“Do you think Grace is here?” Quinn asked.

“Who knows?” Carol responded. “If I had to guess, I’d say no. She was one of the most genuinely loving people I ever met. This isn’t hell and there’s more than one afterlife. But if there is a heaven, I have no doubt she’s in it.”

“Then Sanheim lied to Kieran from the start,” Quinn said.

“Trust me, that’s all he ever does,” she said. “But mostly, Kieran lied to himself. Deep in his heart, he must’ve known it wasn’t true. There’s no way to bring back the dead and he knows it.”

“So that’s what you didn’t want to tell me?” he asked.

“What? No,” she said. “Sorry, I got distracted. I was talking about the letter. That day in 1873 seems to be a defining day not just in our world, but this one. The battle between Crowley and Sanheim must have been intense. But as I think I told you, I haven’t found a single soul — no matter what manner of creature — who was here at the time. And I find that worrying.”

“Why?” Quinn asked.

“Because no one ages here,” she said. “And from Lilith’s account, Crowley and his crew were destroyed relatively quickly. She reappeared a day or so later, offered that letter, and then promptly disappeared again.”

“I’m not following you,” he said.

“There should be hundreds or thousands of creatures here that remember that day. And while I haven’t taken a scientific sample, I haven’t heard of any. If the fight was over quickly and there presumably weren’t huge losses on Sanheim’s side, where did they all go?”

“My God,” Quinn said. “So what you’re saying…”

“I think he didn’t want anyone here to know that he had even been challenged. I think he wanted to erase any evidence that it was possible to mount opposition to him, lest it give someone else ideas. That’s why I’m so anxious that you not try to challenge him now. It’s not just you, me or the scarecrows on the line. I think I know what happened last time. I think he wiped everyone out.”

*****

The creature watched the five humans from the grass. He silently eased his black body through the tall red grass, tracking the one in the back. He saw the Dullahan talking intently with the woman and wished he could hear what was said. But though his hearing was good, he couldn’t get quite close enough to make out the words.

That was okay. He was patient. He had waited a long time for the Dullahan to arrive, and he could bide his time.

He considered grabbing the one who wandered too far afield. But he needed more information before he took action. The man in back watched with eagle eyes and one time, he was sure that he had seen him. He didn’t want to be spotted yet.

The creature’s insectile eyes watched the humans as they trekked and knew where they were going. They were heading directly to his home, the place he knew best.

He dropped back and decided to take a different route. He had watched and listened long enough. He needed to get ahead of them.

When they arrived, he would be waiting for them.

Chapter 19

Kate stood by the statue of Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson at the Manassas battlefield and looked out across the moonlit field. The night was quiet, but she could sense the restlessness of the spirits already around her.

She could feel the sadness here when she was still a few miles out. After Ball’s Bluff, it made sense to try Manassas next. It was close by, only a county beyond Loudoun, and was the site of not one, but two major battles during the Civil War. History had never been Kate’s passion, but she could pull from Quinn’s knowledge. He’d always shown much more enthusiasm for the subject.

Both Manassas battles had been Confederate victories, in large part because of one man — Jackson. A relatively obscure colonel at the time of the First Battle of Bull Run, Jackson had withstood withering fire while mounted on his horse, apparently immovable.

“There is Jackson standing like a stone wall,” another soldier had called out. “Let us determine to die here, and we will conquer. Rally behind the Virginians.”

Kate smiled at the quote. If only Quinn were here now. He was the Virginian, not her. She may have grown up here, but after her mother died, she never felt like she belonged anywhere. But Quinn would have appreciated the idea of rallying behind the Virginians.

What mattered now wasn’t the leader who had saved the South in those fights, or even the sheer number of casualties on this field. Kate learned last year that the trauma of the event mattered far more. Even those who were only wounded or terrified on this spot could find their spirits trapped here.

On that score, Manassas was unique in several ways. For one, it was the site of the first true battle of the Civil War, an unpleasant surprise for both sides who had assumed the war would end quickly and with little cost. After thousands died brutally here, everyone had woken up to the reality that the war could drag on for years. The second battle went better for the Confederates, but was a devastating loss for the Union, which lost more than 10,000 men.

Where Kate now stood represented both sheer numbers of dead from which to draw spirits as well as a series of traumatic events that might continue to haunt those who fought here. She was unsure how many spirits might lurk in this place, but the number would be significant.

She closed her eyes, shifted into the shape of the banshee, and bowed her head as if in prayer. She spread her arms wide.

Come to me
, she called out.
Put down your fears and come to me. Come to me and be free.

At Ball’s Bluff, there had been no resistance, probably because she was already known to the ghosts trapped there. But on this field, she could sense the questions, the concern. It was like a tidal wave of mental anguish, but Kate pushed it aside. In soothing tones, she called out again.

Come to me,
she said.
I am the last.

She felt them responding. They were confused, but they were coming. A year ago, there had been a sense of urgency, but this time she let them gather slowly before her. As if she were watching people emerging from a fog, she could see the soldiers materialize. Unsurprisingly, they gathered as they had been in life. A line of soldiers in blue formed on one side of the field, and a corresponding line of gray soldiers faced them.

There were so many, far more than Kate expected. They flocked in hundreds and then thousands. The lines of soldiers grew longer and deeper.

She was pleased at first, but grew steadily more alarmed. The armies weren’t focusing on Kate; rather, they had started to pay more attention to each other. There was no sense of shared camaraderie or relief that the battle was finally over. These spirits were angry and restless. She knew first-hand that ghosts could bring physical objects with them — she had used her Union and Confederate soldiers’ weapons against Elyssa’s dobhar-chu.

The soldiers on both sides had been unarmed at first, appearing in their old uniforms but with none of their equipment. That started to change rapidly. Each soldier now held a weapon, and the formations — vague initially — started to group into a fighting stance, breaking into battalions. Kate saw flags of individual units suddenly appear.

Kate called to try and soothe them, but there were too many. Even the spirits who had followed her from Ball’s Bluff were starting to drift off into their original sides. Last year she gave them a shared threat and goal, but without that, they seemed determined to re-fight the past. Kate watched as artillery on both sides started to appear and men on horseback began shouting orders.

The Third Battle of Bull Run was about to begin.

*****

Kate wasn’t sure who fired first.

She saw a line of Confederates kneel down, and started shouting.

“No, no,” she said, but her voice was drowned out by the shouting that had begun on both sides. The Union forces responded to the threat and Kate heard a loud “Fire!” Both sides started shooting at each other.

They were ghosts, supposedly beyond physical death, yet it didn’t seem to matter. As it had nearly 150 years before, the initial volley decimated the first wave of troops. Kate saw some go down and lie still, while others writhed in pain.

A cannon shell exploded near her. Even in her moment of panic, Kate had a momentary pang of jealousy. If she had been able to summon cannons to her aid last year, she might have been able to kill the dobhar-chus before they even stepped onto the battlefield.

But the fight before her was on a scale she couldn’t have imagined. The field was swarming with the Blue and the Gray locked again in the battle that had either killed them or dominated the rest of their lives.

I am the last
, she thought.
Stop this now!

They didn’t even hear her. The front lines were now engaged in hand-to-hand combat. She saw one soldier bayonet a rival through the eye.

It was madness, and Kate realized her mistake. She had underestimated the past. She thought the soldiers would just want freedom from the prison they had created for themselves.

But as the soldiers around her clashed and died a second time, she realized the emotions of their feud had only been frozen in time. There had been no healing for these men, only waiting. Now the old grief and anger had come to the surface and their full fury let loose. The past was a living, breathing thing, and it had come roaring back with a vengeance.

Kate had lost control. All around her there was the blast of cannons, the sound of shots fired, and screams from fallen soldiers. If she didn’t move quickly, all the spirits would kill each other and she would be left without an army. Even the ghosts she had brought with her had forgotten their unified goal and drifted back into their former alliances.

She needed help quickly. Instead of calling to everyone, Kate called to one she knew would be among the throng.

Clinton Hatcher,
she called.
Clinton Hatcher, report for duty. Virginia needs you.

At first, she didn’t think it would work. She watched as another slew of soldiers went down, keenly aware of the losses. But a soldier in gray soon appeared in front of her. He was unusually tall, with red hair and a beard.

“Hatcher,” he said. “8th Virginia Infantry. Reporting for duty.”

On Ball’s Bluff last year, Hatcher had been her point man, the soldier from Purcellville who was horrified to learn about the burning of his home town. He looked young, barely past a teenager, but he was the only hope Kate had.

“We need to stop this fight,” she said simply.

“No, Ma’am,” Hatcher said. “We’re going to give the Yanks a real whipping this time.”

“Listen to me closely,” Kate said. “This isn’t your battle. This was long ago.”

Hatcher eyed her warily, as if she were crazy.

“We’re still fighting, Ma’am,” he said.

And that about summed it up, she thought. They were so locked into their old feud, they didn’t even know why they were battling anymore. It didn’t matter that they were all dead, that a truce had been signed more than a century earlier. They were still fighting.

Kate felt her own anger surging. She had come here to set them free, not re-fight the damned Civil War. She looked Hatcher steadily in the eye.