Lisa straightened, chin high. She patted Joey’s arm, said, “I’ll come back at a different time of the month,” and stalked away.
Joey grabbed Zef’s wrist. “Okay. Let’s book.”
On the way out of the room they found Valerie.
“Where are you going?” she asked, pressing “Hello my name is 10” to her blouse.
“To the lighthouse,” said Joey.
“What’s at the lighthouse?”
“Jason,” said Zef. “He’s alive.”
Her eyes widened. “My God.”
“And Kate’s possessed,” said Joey. “We can’t stay here.”
“We can’t leave. Not until they let us—touch the sister-stone.”
Joey rubbed his nose, thinking. “Damn it. Okay. Right after, then.”
Mather swept into the room, smiling brightly. Jessica followed him, carrying a clipboard and a flat box of black velvet. He clapped his hands for attention.
“Are we having a good time? Sorry for the décor, everyone. This was a last-minute summons and we didn’t realize they’d dressed the place for Halloween.” He pushed a werewolf bridesmaid out of her chair and sat. “Please gather around. On the floor if you like. Let’s keep this informal.”
The group did as they were told. Lisa pushed to the front, close enough to lick Mather’s dress shoe if she wanted. Joey sat cross-legged on the carpet and slipped an arm around Zef. Valerie pulled up a chair and sat with ankles crossed.
“Is this everyone?” said Mather, sounding forlorn.
“I’m afraid so,” said Jessica.
“There used to be hundreds of us in Sleepy Hollow. How many are here?”
“Eighteen,” said Jessica, her eyes on the clipboard.
“Eighteen. We are dying out, aren’t we? Or more of us have been killed than I realized.”
“Cut to the chase, Gift-Catcher,” Valerie said, with authority. “I want to go home.”
Mather frowned. “I’m coming to it, Ms. Maule.” He addressed the assembled group. In their beaked masks, they looked like a nest of chicks waiting for him to regurgitate a worm. “Each of you received a red stone, like this one.” He raised an anichitis. “Ms. Bridge holds the sister-stone.”
Jessica opened the velvet box. Number Fifteen, a bald man, lunged forward, hand outstretched to touch the small black sinochitis inside. Jessica batted the man’s hand away and snapped the box shut.
Mather leaned forward “Once you’ve touched the sinochitis, the spell that brought you here will be broken, with our apologies for any inconveniences we’ve caused. But you will hear what I have to say first. We would not have summoned you except at great need. This town is in crisis. We are on the brink of a true outbreak.” The crowd shifted, uncomfortable. “The Headless Horseman is riding through our town. He’s real, and he’s killing our neighbors. As long as the situation persists, we are all in danger. And we’ll be tempted to use our Gifts to defend ourselves. I’ve seen it before. Self-preservation always wins out over keeping the secret. But one photograph, one video, is all it takes, my friends. Just one. And the Curse could claim—”
“Millions,” said Jessica.
“Maybe billions. Think about that.” Mather paused, letting the potential calamity sink in. The crowd muttered to each other softly. “The world only survives because we keep hidden. The Great Curse demands ruthless self-discipline from every single one of us. Two Gifted in the Hollow have already gone rogue. One of you was even caught on camera.”
“Who could be that stupid?” muttered Lisa.
Joey tried to disappear into the carpet. Zef put a hand on Joey’s knee.
“Under these circumstances,” Mather sat up straight, “we have no choice but to enforce… a quarantine.”
An angry murmur ran through the group.
“You can’t keep us here!” said Number Seven, the newsstand worker.
“I’m afraid we can,” said Mather.
“For how long?” said Eight, the cater waiter.
“For the duration of the emergency.”
Uniformed men appeared at the doors, brandishing weapons.
“No way!” Joey stood. “My dad’s in the hospital! I’m not staying here!”
Mather rolled his eyes. “Ladies and gentlemen, our rogue.”
“Solving this—could take weeks!” said Valerie, also rising.
“And our other rogue!”
“Longer,” Valerie continued, “if none of us—are out there fighting him! You’re a moron, Gift-Catcher.” Valerie led Joey and Zef to the door. The guards closed ranks. “Tell your goons to step aside.”
“And if I refuse? You must realize by now that this house is a Dead Zone. You’re powerless. Don’t worry, everyone. You’ll get your Gifts back when you leave.”
“And when is that?” someone barked.
“When I decide.” Mather gestured to a short grey-suited man in the corner. Number One. “This is Mr. DeRegt of Zelig Financial. His hedge fund services our community exclusively. All your financial needs—missed work, bills, et cetera—will be covered at our expense, and everyone who serves the term of the quarantine will be given a substantial financial bonus when they leave—for their trouble.”
“How much?” asked Number Eighteen, a skinny librarian-looking woman.
“The longer we’re locked down, the greater your remuneration will be. We’ll start at five figures and work upward from there. Anything you need, Mr. DeRegt will see to. If you have normal family members who might look for you, speak to me or Ms. Bridge and we’ll make sure they’re appropriately modified. We have rooms for you downstairs. The mansion is quite comfortable. Enjoy the treat. This is a museum, but you may ignore all velvet ropes. Normals don’t get to sit on the furniture. We do. We have a five-star chef named—”
“Let me out of here right now!” Joey screamed.
Mather shot to his feet. He strode across the room, raised a palm, and slapped Joey hard across the face. “Never raise your voice to me!”
Zef balled his fists and charged the man, but the click of weapons stopped him in his tracks.
“Don’t try anything,” said Mather. “Without your Gifts, you’re just a couple of stupid teenagers. This is adult business. You will toe the line.”
One of the guards pointed his weapon at Joey’s head. Zef stepped between, the barrel of the gun to his own chest.
“Lower your rifle,” said Jessica. “That’s my son.”
The man obeyed.
“Please,” said Joey, rubbing his cheek. “My dad needs me.”
“Because you cursed him,” Mather said.
“Yes.”
“I’m sorry. This is a lesson we all learn eventually. Normal people are better off without us.” Mather put a hand on Joey’s shoulder. “We’re your family now.”
“Can I call my mom at least?”
“We’ll be confiscating your electronics. You may write a note, but we’ll have to approve it.”
Joey wrenched away, hiding tears.
Lisa approached and took Joey’s arm, squeezing it. “It won’t be so bad. They’ve got a piano.”
Jessica stepped forward with the velvet box. “Each of you may touch the stone on your way downstairs. Your badge numbers are also your room assignments.”
The crowd filed past Jessica, each visible face filling with relief as they touched the sinochitis and left the room.
“Mather,” said Zef. “You’ll go get Jason, right? Bring him here?”
Mather’s and Jessica’s eyes met. “Jason’s dead,” Mather whispered. “He has to be. Dead, or miles from here. The summons caught every Gifted within a five-mile radius. He didn’t come, did he?”
“How can he come if he’s locked up?” Zef turned to Jessica. “Is—is this about the money? You wouldn’t just let Jason die, right? Not when we could—”
“We’ll do something,” Jessica said. “I promise. Mather and I will talk.”
“Dad didn’t come either. But he got a stone. I saw
it.”
Jessica raised the box, grinning. “Well, unless he touches this he’s going to be in bad shape. Why don’t you take your turn?”
Zef touched the stone and his shoulders relaxed. He led Joey to the box and said, “We’ll figure it out, baby.”
Joey blinked. Zef had never called him that before. And it didn’t sound stupid, the way it did when he used to call Kate “babe.” Joey touched the sinochitis and the alarm bells stopped ringing in his head.
“What?” Valerie cried out from the corner of the room. She held a cell phone pressed to one ear. One of Mather’s men ripped it from her hand. Valerie turned a circle, her face full of fear. She took off running, knocking the crowd aside. She broke through the line of security and sprinted for the front door.
“Stop her!” said Mather.
Joey and Zef made a run for it too, ducking into the reception room and circling around the coffin. But as they reached the entry hall a bullet blew George Washington’s nose off, raising a cloud of marble dust. They froze, hands high.
Jessica stepped between Zef and the guards. “Don’t you dare shoot my son!”
The windows of the manor went white, and a few seconds later a heavy crash of thunder rolled through the marble hall. Valerie struggled uselessly with the locked door of the vestibule. She gave up, fell against the rainy glass, and slipped to the floor, letting out an inarticulate, almost animalistic groan.
“What the hell is wrong with you?” Mather growled. A sea of plague masks surrounded him, watching the drama.
Joey went to Valerie, raising his hands to appease the guards. “Who was on the phone?”
Valerie looked up with disbelieving eyes and engaged her valve. “Mike. He’s been arrested.”
“For what?”
“For the murder of Debbie Flight.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
“Someday”
Bells pealed through Sleepy Hollow, bright as the sound of rain on the tin roof of Lyndhurst Manor. The bells of telephones, as word spread of the Horseman Killer’s arrest. The perp’s identity was supposed to be withheld, of course, but a patrolman at the station had whispered “Mike Parson” to his gossipy mother, and soon all the biddies of Tarrytown were calling each other, each hoping to be first with the news.
The skeptics in town—those who hadn’t seen, who had laughed at the homecoming survivors—nodded sagely. Of course it had been a man, not a ghost. Just a sick man. Fireman Mike had seemed so normal, so likeable. But that’s always the way, isn’t it? It’s always the person you least suspect. How sad. But at least it was all done with. Those horrible Sleepy Hollow Boys were in jail, and now the mysterious ringleader had been caught. It was time to put all the unpleasantness in the past and move on.
But the believers—and there were still many, despite the Appointed’s best efforts—felt dread at the news of the arrest. Fireman Mike was not the real killer. They knew damn well who the real killer was.
Mr. Smolenski sat in his office at the Historical Society, drinking, listening to the rain. The window hung open and rustled the rolled maps all around. He’d just seen the colonial uniform of John Paulding—one of the Andre captors—twitch in its display case and tap the glass with a shiny gold button. Smolenski had been at homecoming. He knew who the real killer was.
Jennifer sat in a booth at Ichabod’s, counting wadded dollar bills. The rain lashed the windows. A cold wet wind blew the restaurant door wide, setting the silver bells to chime. She rose and shut it again, but the bells didn’t stop ringing. They went on, raising musical gooseflesh. She turned and watched with confused horror as all the menus—which still bore the Horseman logo—shivered and fainted, all by themselves. She knew who the real killer was too.
Alyson Baldock, the sole survivor of Spook Trek, drove her Jeep Grand Cherokee up Broadway, headed home to Brattleboro. She’d taken up smoking again, and the cab filled with a pungent ghostly haze. The sign SLEEPY HOLLOW leapt into her headlights and passed, its letters distorted by the cracked windshield. She knew who the real killer was.
Nate and his girlfriend Page believed. So did Jenny Bale and Mrs. Thorstenson and Principal Grayson. They had seen him. He was still out there.
The believers of Sleepy Hollow would not be fooled by Mike’s arrest. They knew that the Horseman’s ride wasn’t over, even as their foolish neighbors relaxed. They sat with their novels and books of ghost-lore, staring out their windows at the thickening rain. They had seen. They knew.
A goblin imp lives at the top of the Dunderberg, the ‘Thunder Mountain’ north of the Tappan Zee. The ‘Heer of Dunderberg’, as the Dutch called him, is a bulbous-bottomed spectre, in trunk hose and a sugarloaf hat, who raises his speaking-trumpet to summon the Storm Ship: an evil vessel manned by malevolent witches and dire spooks.
The Storm Ship had come. Tonight’s rolling thunder was just the beginning of the terror. His minions lash, his waters pitch, and all a man can do is knot himself to a sturdy rail… and pray to be spared.
A little ghost with hair ribbons skipped down the cemetery path, singing to the rain…
“Oh, the bloody biting spider went up the water spout…
The bloody biting rain came down and washed the spider out,
The bloody biting sun came and dried up all the rain,
And the bloody biting spider went up the spout again.”
One of the distorted hemlocks cracked, giving up the ghost at last, and fell across the headstones of Section 77. At the southern end of the cemetery, the locusts twisted and rustled above the burying ground. The storm lashed the ancient headstones and puddled the Horseman’s grave, seeping deep. The two weathervanes of the Old Dutch Church spun—in opposite directions, as always. Rain battered the millpond and flooded the parking lot of Philipsburg Manor. It drizzled down the face of an enormous white boulder that sported the word “Seniors” in the yard of the Korean Church of Westchester. The wind knocked over the pumpkin-headed scarecrow at the center of town. He crumpled against the town clock, rain dripping from his eyes. Hail skittered down steep Beekman Avenue. It struck the boarded-up windows of shops—the smashed windows where once the Horseman rode.
A woman ran madly for shelter, shielding her head with a magazine. A dog howled in a window, answering the thunder. Fuses blew and homes went dark. Fathers cursed and mothers lit candles. Children hid under covers, reading horror comics by flashlight.
The gutters around each home ran deep, like the grooves of an embalming table. The sewers backed up, and stoplights blinked above mirrors of red that shattered, over and over again. The runoff sluiced over a curb, spilling into the old GM land, filling secret sub-basements, long abandoned. The wind bent the chain link, as if the hands of prisoners shook it. The Hudson swelled, threatening the seawall, its dunes of black water whipping into tendrils of mist, its waves slapping the moorings, its undertow dredging silt from the deepest riverbed, from far beneath the arches of the bridge of bones, where Jason’s kilo bar lay forgotten, ignored by the currents, shining in the depths like the Rheingold of the Nibelungen.
The black horse that had been Gunsmoke rose on its hind legs, struggling against its reins. It kicked as if to spur the galloping waves and ride the lightning. Its mane ran heavy with wet, spilling a row of black icicles down its cheeks. It bared square teeth and screamed at the sky. Gunsmoke was gone. This was Mitternacht. No show horse. No docile pet. A warhorse, abiding no rider but one. His eyes glowed—red as a prairie fire in high grass. The thunder called, and Mitternacht answered, striking his hooves against the metal mesh. Two wild things in conversation. Boom. Crash. Boom. Crash. Boom. Crash. Drum and cymbal. Over and over.
The eyes of the Tarrytown Light shone red as well. Its windows glinted with the light of tallow candles. The old light. The ancient light. The soul-light in the pumpkin shell. But electricity cut the clouds, as if drawn to this little sparkplug at the edge of the Tappan Zee—summoned there to turn over some ignition, to fire some infernal engine that would grind awa
y the world…
Jason screamed.
“Grow a pair,” said Eddie. He wrenched Jason’s dislocated shoulder back into position. The ball lurched into its socket, but Jason got no relief from pain. Eddie made one last loop around Jason’s wrists and threw the rest of the rope over a beam. He yanked Jason’s arms over his head and tied off, leaving him to hang, feet on the ground but trussed up by his aching arms. “Just be glad we gave you your sweatpants back.”
Jason’s suspended hands glowed again, casting the shadows of his captors around the room as he swayed back and forth.
Hadewych slumped into a chair, his head in his hands and his eyes full of candle flame. “I can’t stand it! Make it stop!” His knees bobbed. “Lyndhurst. Tonight. Nine p.m. Lyndhurst. Tonight. Nine p.m.”
“My poor boy,” Agathe crooned, stroking Hadewych’s blond hair.
Eddie cocked an eyebrow. “What’s wrong with dickhead?”
Hadewych struck fists against his temples. “I missed it. I missed it. I missed the summons.”
“Summons?” Jason said, coming out of his haze. “What summons?” Had there been another? Like the one that stole his parents away?
Hadewych drew a red stone from his pocket. “Why didn’t you get one of these?” He threw the rock at Jason, as if to stone a sinner. It clipped Jason’s ear and clattered off the wall.
Agathe picked the stone up. “You didn’t receive an anichitis, boy?”
“Don’t talk to me,” Jason said, squeezing his eyelids shut. He couldn’t stand the sound of her. The alien cadences hijacking the well-loved voice.
She neared him. “You received no stone, and your presence has been hidden from me. Why?”
“Get away from me. Please. I’ll give you anything. Get out of Kate and go away.”
“You should have let me kill him,” said Eddie. “We wouldn’t have to listen to him whine.”
“I had to protect my reliquary.” Agathe noticed Eddie gazing at the thing, and she snatched it up, holding the severed head to Jason’s light. “Once my Monster’s strong again, he’ll rise and do his work. The boy’s not going anywhere.”
SLEEPY HOLLOW: General of the Dead (Jason Crane Book 3) Page 40
