Band of Demons (The Sanheim Chronicles Book 2)

by Rob Blackwell

  He thought of something then. A friend at work had told him that last year near Halloween he had been driving along a back road and had passed—of all things—a black horse and rider traveling at the dead of night. While that was creepy enough, Tom had insisted that the rider had no head. Mike had laughed it off, of course. Tom was lying, drunk or delusional—and in his case, all three were possible.

  But the story had remained somewhere in his mind. As he looked down the trail and waited, he shivered. Could Tom have been right? It was ridiculous, of course. But this time of year—and this time of evening—the crazy suddenly seemed possible.

  He could just make out a figure now, something riding incredibly fast down the trail. How could this person even see, Mike wondered.

  Unless he doesn’t have to, the voice in the back of his mind wondered. Unless he doesn’t have a head?

  Mike had never particularly liked “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow.” He’d always found it unnerving. He was just deciding that maybe it was better to go back inside when the figure took on a more defined form as it got closer. For a second, he was relieved. Whoever the rider was, it clearly had a head.

  But as it came closer, Mike got a better look. It wasn’t the Headless Horseman; it was much worse. Mike took one look at the insanely-colored hair, the pale white face and the red glowing eyes, and ran.

  He hoped it hadn’t seen him as he ran through his backyard, but then he heard a crash behind him. The horse had veered off the path, leapt his fence and now stood in his backyard. The rider grinned at him.

  “I had planned to put you all to sleep before I did this,” it said. “Higher body count that way, you know. But I think a little panic and chaos seem like more fun, don’t you?”

  Mike didn’t know what the hell it was talking about—and didn’t care. He turned around and ran to his back door.

  As he did, he felt a blast of heat behind him. He turned again to see a jet of fire coming his way. Mike tried to scream as the flames engulfed him. But his smoking corpse hit the ground before he made a sound.

  *****

  Aillen watched in satisfaction as the man’s house went up in flames. He hoped there was a family inside.

  He yanked on the horse’s reins and rode back to the path. He had no intention of sticking to a small suburban neighborhood this time.

  If Quinn and Kate wanted to see what kind of damage he could really do, he’d show them. They would regret not surrendering to him.

  He rode off the path, onto a street and turned left. As he rode toward the town center, he started burning houses and businesses all along the street.

  When he got to Main Street, he looked for appropriate targets and laughed with joy when he saw a store to his right. Purcell Gun Store, the sign read.

  He dismounted, strode to the front of the store—which unfortunately stood closed due to how late it was—and let loose more fire. He watched as the flames consumed the store and then listened to the sounds of exploding ammunition inside. It was like a fireworks display, he thought.

  He got back on his horse and rode across the street. His main target stood before him. Destroying the Purcellville Town Hall would be a purely symbolic act. There was no one working there tonight. But a symbolic act would be more important than the number of human lives he took. He aimed a blast at the front columns, then watched as they spread up the façade. He hit the giant white doors with another burst of flame and smiled with satisfaction as the fire started to spread. It was fitting, he supposed. There were no kings to aggravate anymore, no castles for him to burn. This was the closest he would get.

  He didn’t wait too long, however. He had given himself a significant head start and confirmed Kieran as a traitor in the process. Most of Loudoun’s firefighting resources were now committed halfway across the county. But that advantage wouldn’t last forever, and he had more on his agenda than burning a few businesses. Symbolism was all well and good, but in this world, if there was no grief attached to it, it wouldn’t really sting.

  He kicked the horse beneath him and raced past the burning town hall, now consumed in flames, and past a field until he came to a subdivision packed with homes. There were easily more than 20 houses in this small stretch. All it would take was a few to burn for the whole area to go up in smoke.

  By now, the sound of sirens was in the air. The night was lit up with dozens of fires reaching to the sky. Aillen watched as a man stood on the front stoop of his house, gaping at the evening horizon. Behind him, he saw a boy, maybe just 10 or 11 years old. They weren’t looking in his direction, but instead stared up at the rising smoke.

  Soon they wouldn’t need to strain their eyes. When Aillen kicked his horse forward, he rode past the row of houses, spreading flames as he went.

  When the boy and his father began running, Aillen didn’t let them get very far.

  *****

  October 28, 2007

  Kate threw a small rubber ball at the floor and let it bounce back to her.

  The downstairs neighbors would probably complain again. She was making too much noise, but she didn’t care. She had to do something to keep the images of Purcellville out of her mind.

  The carnage was unfathomable. Even almost 24 hours later, the full casualty list was still unclear. Sawyer hadn’t succeeded in burning the entire town of Purcellville—if that was his goal—but he had killed more than 37 men, women and children and done untold damage to a large swath of the town.

  A part of her knew it could have been worse. Sawyer could have used his flute, lulled people to sleep, and kept destroying the town. Surely that was what he’d done in Crail so long ago.

  But he wasn’t just facing firefighters or citizens this time. Kate had raced down the roads to Purcellville at unsafe speeds. When she arrived, she had turned into the banshee and sought to find her nemesis.

  But by then, he was nowhere to be found. He had vanished, leaving only fire and destruction in his wake.

  Kate had been as powerless as everyone else to stop the fires from spreading. She had changed back into Kate Tassel then and along with other citizens roused from their beds, spent the evening trying to do what little she could to help.

  The hospital in Leesburg had quickly been overrun. Quinn had dropped down the priority list immediately, particularly in the burn unit. When he insisted on checking himself out despite his condition, there was no one left to argue against it. His bed was needed for far worse cases—ones that wouldn’t recover mysteriously.

  He had hobbled out, grimaced as he got into Kate’s car, and the two had gone home.

  He lay now in his recliner and watched her. He knew her mind and it worried him.

  “It’s my fault,” she said finally, speaking out loud the words that had echoed in her head for hours.

  “You didn’t know,” he responded.

  “If I hadn’t told those firefighters to be out at Waterford, there would have been more of them on hand. They could have stopped the worst of it. They could have…”

  “It was a set-up, Kate,” Quinn said. “You know that.”

  “And I fell for it!”

  Kate stood up, letting the juggling ball bounce on the floor and under the sofa.

  “Then blame the ones who did this,” Quinn said.

  She glared at him.

  “Oh, I blame them,” she said. “Don’t worry about that. When I get my hands on them, I will tear them limb from limb. I’ll kill them slowly so they can understand the agony they’ve caused.”

  “Kate…”

  “No,” she said. “I could have stopped them. If I hadn’t pissed away so much time moping about my own issues. My mother. Lord Halloween. ‘I am the last’—whatever that means. Sanheim was right. I needed to embrace what I was. Then all those lives wouldn’t have been lost.”

  “You were being cautious,” he said.

  Kate jumped across the room and almost shouted into Quinn’s face.

  “I got them killed!” she said. “If I had moved qu
icker, understood faster, this wouldn’t have happened. These people are dead because I was paralyzed. Because I was afraid.”

  It was no use telling her she had a right to be. That the power they tapped into last year wasn’t something that could be wielded for good. Quinn was sure now that it was inherently corrupting. Maybe Sawyer and Elyssa had even been compassionate people once. It wasn’t too hard to imagine. But now…

  “All my life,” Kate continued. “I’ve fought to defeat men like Kyle Thompson. I saw my mother’s corpse when I was barely a teenager. Every single day since then has been defined by that moment. Last year, I thought we were free. I thought—together—you and I could put this place right. That’s why I wrote the letter. Not so the police would understand, but so the killers in this county would know to stay the hell away. And I failed, Quinn. I failed them all.”

  She sat on the couch. Quinn waited for the tears to start, but they didn’t. He wondered if she was past them now. He wondered if he had lost her already.

  “You were being cautious,” he said again. “What we have—what we are—isn’t something to be used lightly. You don’t know that even if you had your full strength, you could have reached them in time. And you can’t lose… you can’t lose sight of yourself. If you lash out blindly, it’s only a matter of time before another innocent person gets killed—then it really would be your fault.”

  “Tell that to the people who died, Quinn,” Kate said, but she talked so softly he almost didn’t hear her.

  They were disturbed by a knock at the door. As she rose, Kate said, “At least I think we can agree on the next course of action. You’re going to get better and then we hit them—hard. I know where we need to meet them now. And I promise you—Sawyer, Elyssa, their moidin, and especially Kieran—are going to pay for what happened last night.”

  When she opened the door, Kieran was standing in the hallway.

  *****

  “You son of a bitch,” Kate said.

  She didn’t wait for a reply, but grabbed him by his shirt collar and threw him to the floor. The door fell shut behind her.

  In an instant, she transformed into the banshee and knelt on top of Kieran. She put her skeletal fingers across his throat.

  “Good,” she said and her voice was eerily high-pitched and breathy. “Saves me the trouble of hunting you down.”

  Kieran struggled on the ground and tried to speak.

  “Kate, let him go!” Quinn said.

  She didn’t. Her fingers tightened around his throat.

  “I’m curious, Kieran,” she rasped. “What will happen when I scream at point-blank range? Will your blood boil? Perhaps your brain will run out of your ears? Shall we see?”

  Kieran gave a strangled cry and the spirit took a breath.

  She never saw the Horseman appear, only felt him—impossibly—pull her off Kieran. She wasn’t sure which emotion she felt more keenly as he picked her up: surprise or betrayal. She opened her mouth to scream anyway. Even from this distance, she should be able to kill Kieran in seconds. The Horseman’s hand wrapped around her mouth. She struggled against him.

  You will stop this now, said his voice in her head.

  No! she replied. He will pay for what he’s done. I am the harbinger of death. I will…

  Listen to me! the Horseman thought.

  He didn’t speak in words, but a series of images flashed through her mind. They were images of Kate walking through the paper, talking with Tim. She saw their first meeting at the Starbucks, how he stared at her. She saw them kissing in a hotel room far from here, making love. And she saw him proposing to her on one knee in this very room.

  You are not a killer, his voice said.

  He killed them! This is justice!

  You do not know that, he said. He came here to talk. Let him speak. He could help us.

  We don’t need his help, she said.

  Yes, we do, the Horseman said. If we don’t get help, we will fail. And those deaths last night will be a complete waste.

  She stopped struggling then, whether because of the images still playing in her mind—her own memories now, her mother pushing her on a swing, laughing with her father—or because she was finally persuaded by his logic.

  When she stopped struggling, he put her down. They both shimmered for a moment. Kate and Quinn looked at the terrified man on the floor.

  “I take it you decided not to kill me?” he asked.

  Kieran could only remember one other time when he had been quite so petrified in his life. He kept waiting for Kate to finish him off, but saw with some relief that it wasn’t going to happen.

  “For now,” Kate said, and she stepped around him.

  Quinn offered him a hand to help him off the floor. Kieran noticed his pained expression when he helped him up. However much he had recovered in the past few days, Quinn was still wounded.

  Quinn gestured to a chair in the corner and Kieran sat down.

  “What do you want?” she said. “Come to give us another ‘warning’?”

  “That wasn’t my fault,” Kieran said.

  “Careful,” Kate replied and she looked at him as if he were a bug she would love to squash. “Any lies and I will kill you. I don’t think Quinn has enough strength left to stop me a second time.”

  Kieran took one look at Quinn and knew that was probably true. He looked worse than the last time he had seen him, evidently exhausted from his brief dispute with Kate.

  “It was a trick,” Kieran said to her, knowing it would make little difference. “Sawyer suspected I tipped you off to the Ashburn attack. He wanted to test me. He fed me false information about Waterford. At worst, I would do nothing and the county’s firefighters would respond to him when he attacked Purcellville. At best, though, I would warn you and you would divert resources miles away from where they would be needed.”

  “Why should we believe you?” Kate asked.

  “Why would I lie?” he spat back at her. “If I’m still working for Sawyer, why did I tell you about Ashburn in the first place? Why did I hire those two kids to draw graffiti everywhere? Why did I leave you the book at Carol’s place? You must know by now that I did all that. I was trying to help you!”

  “Did you kill her?” Kate asked.

  The temperature in the room dropped significantly and Kieran took a step back.

  “Maybe I shouldn’t have brought that up,” he said, and offered a half smile.

  “Did you kill her?” Kate said again slowly, punctuating every word.

  Kieran looked her in the eye and the smile dropped from his lips.

  “Yes,” he said.

  Kate stared at him for a long moment as if daring him to say anything else.

  “Why?” Quinn finally said.

  “It wasn’t my idea,” he said. “She knew too much.”

  “She said she didn’t know anything at all,” Kate said.

  “Then she lied to you,” Kieran replied. “Other than Sawyer or myself, Carol—or Madame Zora, if you prefer— knew more about the Prince of Sanheim than anyone.”

  “Why leave for the book for us? How did you know we would find it?” Quinn asked.

  Kieran stared at him in disbelief.

  “I knew who you were, Quinn,” Kieran said. “Don’t you get that by now? Sawyer and Elyssa have been looking for nearly a year, but I’ve only been pretending to help them. At every opportunity, I tried to lead them astray, get them to focus elsewhere. If you hadn’t published that damn article on who killed Lord Halloween, none of us would be here now.”

  The frustration in Kieran’s voice was evident. He shook his head and continued.

  “I left the book at Carol’s because I knew you would be sent to that crime scene,” he said. “She made it clear that she already had contact with you—though she never gave you up—so I knew you would arrive. The police might have found the book first, but they wouldn’t have been looking for a book on the Prince of Sanheim or Richard Crowley. However, it would jump out for
you.”

  “How did you know who we were?” Kate asked and her voice made it clear Kieran was still in danger.

  Kieran paused a moment before continuing. He couldn’t tell them the truth—that Sanheim had told him almost immediately where to find Kate and Quinn and ordered him to keep Sawyer and Elyssa on the wrong track.

  “I’m an excellent researcher,” he replied. “Sawyer and Elyssa left the heavy lifting to me and you two left enough clues for me to be pretty sure I had the right people. I was never really working for them. And now they know it too.”

  “I’m sure they’re all broken up,” Kate said.

  “I imagine they’re pretty angry actually,” Kieran said. “Their plan was to kill me when they got back home last night. Once I realized what had happened, I left. Had to leave by a window on the second floor, by the way. They didn’t make it easy for me.”

  “They set a guard?”

  “Yeah, I tried to leave and found a bunch of moidin outside my room,” he said. “Their orders were pretty clear—make sure I didn’t get away.”

  “And yet here you are,” Quinn said.

  “I’m a survivor,” Kieran said unapologetically. “I’m very good at cheating death. But this is a good thing for you. I can help you now.”

  “We were just beaten pretty badly the other night and yet you’re signing up for our team? I need to know who you are and what you want. No lies, tricks or evasions.”

  “You want to know my sad history?” Kieran asked. “Will that help you understand?”

  “It might,” Kate replied.

  “There isn’t much to it,” he said.

  “Try me,” Quinn responded.

  “All right,” Kieran replied.

  *****

  “It was the 1970s,” Kieran started. “My girlfriend and I had been living in Devonshire, but we were looking for adventure. We heard about a couple who could do extraordinary things.”

  “Sawyer and Elyssa?” Quinn asked.

  “No, but I’ll get to them,” he replied.

  “The man was named C.K. Collins,” Kieran said. “The woman was called Grace. They had started a commune outside of Cambridge. I know these things are out of style now—hell, they were out of style then—but it sounded appealing. My girlfriend and I went to check it out. As I’m sure you can tell, they were another Prince of Sanheim. The commune was just a way to attract moidin.”