SLEEPY HOLLOW: General of the Dead (Jason Crane Book 3)

by Gleaves, Richard

  “I’m doing my best!” Jessica said. “I thought Paul could keep us safe.”

  “Guess you were wrong. Again.” Zef softened, took three steps and embraced her. “Please. Please.” He brought his lips to her cheek, letting his thoughts touch hers, sending an image of some time-lost schoolyard, of a little blond boy with a Popeye lunchbox, skipping happily into her open arms. Rise above yourself, Mama, he thought. For me. Rise above yourself… the way Daddy never could.

  Jessica hesitated. I want to. I do want to.

  Trust me?

  She caressed Zef’s cheek and whispered through tears, “Okay, baby boy. You can grow up… if you really have to. I’m… I’m sorry I missed the middle part.” She gave a nod, and released her hold on the others.

  “What the hell just happened?” said Jason, shaking his head.

  “My mom came home,” whispered Zef.

  He took Jessica’s hand. She kissed his forehead.

  Joey went to the window and gaped at the carnage. “Oh, my HIC!”

  “It’s crazy outside!” said Kate. “What do we do?”

  Thunder rumbled the tower room.

  “I don’t know!” said Jason, rubbing his temple. “If we go down, we’re in the Dead Zone and we lose our Gifts.”

  “Then we go across!” said Joey. “I have an idea—come on.” He ran down the stairs, beckoning.

  Kate followed after. “Let’s go, Zef.” She disappeared.

  “I’ll be right there!”

  “Stay together!” shouted Jason. “Kate’s got the talisman!”

  “She can’t have it,” said Valerie. “It’s mine. I loaned it to Joey. Bring it back.”

  “No,” said Jason, sounding pissed. “Kate needs it. Agathe would get her.”

  “I need it. Or she’ll get me.” Valerie drew her knees up. “She’ll get me again.”

  “Then come with us.” He knelt at Valerie’s side. “Please? We need you.”

  “No. No. I’ve memorized the spell. Bring her bones to me—if you can. But I’m not—going anywhere. Kate can—have the talisman. I… I quit.”

  “You can’t quit. You can’t stay here. You’ll… die.”

  Valerie went still, as if staring into an open coffin. “I died in that river.”

  “Let her be,” said Zef.

  Jason straightened. He gave up trying to convince Valerie and strode toward the stairs. “You coming, Zef?”

  “Be right there.”

  Jessica caught Jason’s arm. “Stay safe, cousin.”

  “You too.” Jason bounded down the stairs and was gone.

  Zef bent at Valerie’s side. He’d seen her like this before, on autumn nights, hiding from trick-or-treaters, checking the locks on her doors and window shutters, like an obsessive-compulsive perpetually washing her hands. He thought she’d beaten it, but maybe fear was… like a virus in your bone marrow, ready to return at the first opportunity. “What happened?”

  “I can’t talk,” she croaked, tears running down her cheeks. “Go.”

  Zef addressed Jessica and Valerie both. “Come with me… moms?”

  “I’ve made my bed,” said Jessica. “She’s right. Go. Hurry. And… come back to me. To us.”

  Zef walked to the stairs and turned, hesitating. Valerie blew him a kiss, then took her red-gold seashell out and whispered to it. Jessica retreated to the windows, frowning, either at the chaos outside… or at a reflection she didn’t much like. If someone were to ask him to choose one of them at that moment, he honestly wouldn’t be able to make the choice. He was glad he didn’t have to.

  He loved them both.

  Jason raced down to the third-floor landing. His hands dimmed a little as he descended, but he seemed to be retaining his charge for now. Just as he reached the others, Joey raised a fist and blew a half-dozen marble blocks out of the wall, opening a passage onto the rooftop of the adjacent two-story wing of Lyndhurst. Joey smiled, looking immensely pleased with himself.

  “Warn us first!” said Kate, choking on marble dust.

  “No time!” said Joey. “I know a way!” He bent and disappeared through the dripping hole.

  Jason shrugged and followed him. Something in the wall threw biting sparks. Joey had ripped out an exterior power cable. It flared dangerously in the rain. Jason shielded his eyes and straightened. He found himself standing on one end of a long flat strip of tin roof dotted with chimneys like a little cemetery. The peaked gables of the second floor rooms rose all around. Joey stood at the far end of the catwalk, under the shelter of a stone portico, gesturing to a metal door set into the side of the vaulted roof of what must be the music room below. He looked as he did at the gates of the Van Brunt tomb, beckoning Jason to follow through the gate and into the hillside.

  Kate cried out. The broken power cable had thrown sparks again. She hurried through the jagged hole, slapping her arms, and glanced down at the yard far below. It swarmed with scarecrows. A half dozen guards lay in the grass, dead or unconscious. The battle had moved inside.

  Jason took Kate’s hand, and they hurried across the roof to Joey, their clothes growing heavy and cold.

  “Hey!” Zef called, somewhere behind them. He stood in an open doorway, four feet to the left of the exploded hole. “This door was unlocked!”

  The cable flared one last time… and all the lights of Lyndhurst went dark.

  Joey sighed. “My bad.”

  Kate tensed and pointed. The darkness now revealed spirits below—slow-moving shadows, wandering through the greenhouse and around the parked cars, standing sentry at the manor gates. “He’s here, isn’t he?”

  “He’s their general,” said Jason.

  “And where he goes…” She touched the talisman.

  Zef arrived, wiping water from his eyes. “What’s your idea, baby?”

  “It’s not my idea. It was—” Kate stopped herself, realizing who Zef was speaking to. “Joey? What’s the plan?”

  Joey struggled with the door. “There’s a latch here… somewhere. Anybody got a light?”

  Jason raised a glowing palm.

  “Thank you, Rudolph!” Joey found the prong and yanked on it. “Damn! It’s rusted shut!”

  Jason slapped his other palm to the metal. His hand flashed, and the rust vanished. “Try it again!”

  Joey yanked the bolt, popped open an iron flap, and waved them all inside.

  They found themselves in a red-curtained chamber with a low-walled balcony overlooking the music room. The dancing Star-Maidens on the ceiling were close enough to touch. A white ghostly shape reached for Jason. He backed off, startled, but it was just a billowing choir robe. Joey entered last and pulled the door tight.

  “What’s this space?” whispered Kate.

  “I sang here one Christmas,” Joey said. “It’s the minstrel gallery. There’s another stairway down at the—”

  Someone screamed. A woman ran into the music room below, pursued by an animated mannequin—the werewolf bridesmaid. It tackled her, hurling her to the ground. Two angel-winged scarecrows followed, dragging a muddy guard into the room with them—an unconscious man with one bent ear—and threw him onto the oversized sofa. A bird-nosed plague mask flitted into the room, its eyeholes peering into all the corners. A plastic Elvis mask joined in the search, darting between the legs of the piano.

  “Well,” said Zef. “You don’t see that every day.”

  The pocket doors blew open and a blast of autumn leaves filled the room. Long burgundy curtains whipped crazily, like blood from opened veins. More gunshots erupted, growing nearer. Jason’s gang ducked behind the balcony rail and huddled around Kate, who kept the talisman raised high, to ward off evil.

  Mather ran to his bedroom and snatched up the Van Brunt sword. He backed down the second-floor hallway, fending off the plastic pirate skeleton that had throttled Madison the grounds man. Something yanked the Oriental carpet from beneath his slippers and he fell hard. Leaves slapped his face, riding a blast of cold air. A painting of Hele
n Gould fell; she lay on her side, staring at him. A crack raced up the faux-marble wall like a bolt of black lightning. The pirate mannequin scrabbled forward. The plastic parrot wired to its clavicle was eager to peck out Mather’s purple eyes. But Abby appeared from nowhere and delivered a sharp kick to the pirate’s head, knocking its gold teeth down its throat. She shot the parrot for good measure.

  The silence after the report was deafening. The rifles outside had ceased fire. The screams of the Gifted below had dwindled. The scarecrows didn’t moan or groan. The Bride of Frankenstein didn’t hiss. The mannequins were mute. The monsters stared—and stared—and stared—vacant and mindless and inexorable.

  Mather and Abby backed away together. A wave of inexplicable melancholy washed over them both, as if the house had been a funeral home once, and a century of mourners had stayed behind to grieve through eternity.

  Something invisible attacked Abby. Her hands went to her face and she screamed. Something had grabbed her piercings, so that her lips and ears and skin stood out in sharp peaks. All her earrings and studs were ripped out, tearing through the skin of her lips and nostrils, eyebrows and eyelids. She twisted away, blood pouring down her cheeks, and fell to one knee. She looked up at Mather, eyes wide and terrified, as a beaked plague mask somersaulted from the shadows and slapped itself to her bloody face. She clawed at it, screaming, trying to pull it off—but then her hands dropped limply and the mask fell away by itself, like a fumbled bowl crusted with tomato soup. The mask had transferred its blank expression to her face.

  She rose, now possessed, and slowly raised her gun.

  Mather dove to one side and Abby shot the fallen painting behind him, giving Helen Gould a piercing. Mather knocked the gun from Abby’s hand with the sword and stumbled into the music room, leaves and Halloween masks whipping all around. Two terrified Gifted ran down the hallway, past the music room door. The blond Kykuit worker—Number Five—and that redheaded girl, Lisa Mayfair. They reappeared a moment later, backing away from blood-faced Abby.

  Number Four saw Mather in the music room, ran in and punched him in the face. “You were supposed to protect us!”

  Mather swung the flat of his blade at the man, striking him in the shoulder. He rubbed his jaw, livid at the impertinence. Lisa had followed Four into the room. She screamed like a steam whistle and hid under the piano. Abby ignored her and flew at Mather. Mather kicked Abby in the stomach, knocking her over. Her green Mohawk hit the wall and she crumpled.

  Some black-bodied thing crawled in through the window. The Kykuit worker fell to his knees, begging for his life. An Elvis mask clapped itself to his face like the hand of a faith healer. His back arched, and the spirit took him. He curled into a ball, face blank and sneering.

  Five more empty-faced Gifted staggered into the room, closing on Mather. Abby rose again, a trickle of blood like a snake tattoo down her neck.

  Lisa screamed, scrambling out from beneath the piano to grab Mather’s elbow. Mather held her in front of him, as a human shield, and backed away from the possessed Gifted. Lisa’s voice leapt the octave. A Phantom of the Opera half-mask flew at her, slapped her face, and fell away, leaving her possessed as well. She went still, a silent, jaded redhead with haunted, empty eyes—Little Orphan Annie in hell—poised by the open-lidded Steinway, ready to sing her ten-thousandth “Tomorrow” for Satan’s amusement.

  Mather heard hoofbeats and whirled. The carved oak doors cracked wide and the Headless Horseman rode into the music room, hatchet raised. His black-maned and red-eyed horse spun, knocking the delicate furniture over. The painted Star-Maidens on the ceiling could neither scream nor flee. The carved satyrs along the cornices waggled their pointed tongues at them, drooling dust.

  “Get back, Horseman!” Mather cried, brandishing the sword like St. George challenging a dragon. “Get back or I’ll use this! Get back! I command you!”

  “What’s he doing?” Jason whispered, peering down through a lyre-shaped hole in the low balcony wall.

  Zef covered his face. “He think’s it’s the Horseman’s Treasure.”

  Jason straightened. “We’ve got to help them.”

  “Get down.” Kate grabbed his arm. “We wouldn’t last ten seconds.”

  Jason crouched, hands in his hair, watching with horror. Mather raised the sword of Dylan Van Brunt and, with a look of triumph, cut his own hand with it, letting blood drip down the blade. He threw back his shoulders and raised his chin, eyes shimmering with all the colors of the rainbow, and shouted, “Rise headless and ride!”

  The black horse snorted. The Horseman spurred it, riding nearer.

  “Rise headless and ride?” Mather repeated, with a little less confidence. The sword-tip faltered.

  The Horseman’s shadow consumed the man.

  “Rise… headless… and…”

  The hatchet whipped sideways, decapitating Mather. Blood splashed the faces of the satyrs and Star-Maidens. Mather’s body fell, the sword still in one hand, but the Horseman caught the dark-eyed head in midair. He set it on fire, raising a sweet stink, and threw it into the piano with a crash of dissonant notes. The impact shook the instrument, and the lid clapped shut as if hammered down with coffin nails.

  The ghost of Agathe Van Brunt drifted into the room.

  “Gift-Catchers,” she sighed, with contempt.

  Her form was gaslight blue and more substantial than ever before. Jason could make out every wrinkle, every wart. She was toothless again, her chin almost to her nose. A bird’s nest of translucent white hair framed her face. She wore the black dress with pearl buttons—as when he’d first seen her, haunting the attic of Gory Brook.

  She addressed a floating plague mask. “Are all the Gifted downstairs taken?”

  The mask nodded.

  “The Crane boy? The girl? They must have come here.”

  The mask shook its nose back and forth.

  “Find my reliquary,” she snapped. “And Kate Usher. Kill anyone who protects her, but spill no other witch-blood. And we must find our sweet Joseph. His father is so worried.”

  Agathe’s lesser minions dispersed, eager to hunt. The Horseman sat at attention, ready for her command. Agathe drifted through the music room, inspecting the possessed figures. She bent and sniffed Lisa Mayfair. “Ohh. Deep blood here. Good. Good.” She spun in a circle. “Lyndhurst is ours. We should celebrate.” Agathe sat at the dripping piano, testing the keys, listening to each clear and resonant note, until one black F sharp raised an almost cartoonish noise as its hammer found the severed head inside. Agathe cocked an ear and struck the key, over and over, gratified by each little thunk.

  “I’ve always liked this tune.”

  CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE

  “Kate’s Choice”

  Jason held his breath, cracked the iron flap and checked the roof, praying that Agathe wouldn’t hear some creaking hinge. He decided the coast was clear, and waved to the others. They crept back into the storm, and Jason breathed again. He found plenty of air. The wind had grown angry and fierce, trying to pitch them to their deaths. The eye had passed over and the rain had surged.

  “That was a bust,” said Joey. “And… I think my Gift is gone again.”

  Jason’s hands had gone dark. “It doesn’t matter.”

  “Poor Mather!” said Kate. “My poor Gunsmoke!”

  “Now what?” said Zef.

  “The house is… overrun,” said Jason.

  “There’s no more screaming.”

  Jason turned to his friends. “There’s nobody left but us, guys. Either we find a way out of here or Agathe’s won. It’s over.”

  The four stared at each other as the situation sank in. They were the only four Gifted still free to act. The only people standing between Agathe and the town. It was all up to them.

  “We need a team name,” said Joey. “Like the Avengers.”

  “Later, baby,” said Zef, shivering.

  Down by the Hudson, a train of the Metro-North Railroad rattled past, headed for
Poughkeepsie, its sleeping passengers oblivious to the Battle of Lyndhurst. It offered up a siren-song—one long note, two short—as a string of half-lit windows drifted past like a stock ticker tallying the crash of the rain.

  “Any way down?” said Zef, searching the roof.

  Jason crawled to the front of the house and leaned over the edge—then ducked, fast as lightning.

  “What is it?” said Zef.

  Thunder shattered the air, loud as if the train had derailed. Jason pointed. Zef looked over and hung his head. Kate and Joey took his hands, offering comfort.

  Hadewych had arrived.

  “Speak of the Devil—and he appears,” whispered Valerie, watching Hadewych hurrying past, far below the tower windows.

  Jessica nudged her. “He’ll get his.”

  “How?”

  Jessica withdrew a flat velvet box from her pocket. She opened it and removed the black sinochitis. She stuck the sister-stone down her cleavage. “Last place he’d look for it.”

  They traded smiles.

  Valerie lost hers first. “He’s going to—burn us alive, you know.”

  “Then we’ll go out like proper witches. Is it a deal, Ms. Maule?”

  “It’s a deal, Ms. Bridge.”

  “Please, girlfriend. Call me Jessica.” She threw the velvet box aside. “Thank you for raising my son, by the way.”

  “My pleasure.”

  “I know. And I’m jealous.”

  Jessica put an arm around Valerie’s shoulders. Valerie took Jessica’s waist. They turned to gaze out the windows again, watching the raindrops dapple the glass. Hadewych’s two exes were still standing arm in arm, like sisters turned to stone, when the scarecrows came to collect them at last.

  Hadewych skirted the wandering dead, gaping at the destruction, as if he’d come back from a business trip to find his home wrecked by some rowdy high school kegger. But this was no party. No party at all. The puddle at his feet wasn’t urine or vomit, and the boy sleeping in the puddle—the boy in red pajamas—would nurse no hangover come sunrise tomorrow. Not without his head.