A Soul To Steal

by Rob Blackwell

  Quinn wanted to ask more about what he meant, but the world had tilted. Everything was giving way. The man was gone and then there was blackness.

  When Quinn opened his eyes, he was in a hospital bed. Above him was a TV and it was playing the strangest movie he had ever seen. There was no plot, only figures walking past a camera. The figures didn’t notice the camera or acknowledge it in any way. Every so often the action would pause and then restart. Quinn was beginning to wonder who would make such a program when he realized what it was: a security feed from Kate’s hotel.

  He noticed Janus was next to him, watching it and taking notes. Where was Kate? He had an image then. She was downstairs in the hospital, using someone’s computer.

  (Thank God you’re awake) Kate thought.

  (What’s going on? Where am I?)

  (I’ll be right up)

  But Quinn found he could access her memories. She had brought him to the hospital, called Janus and waited. The doctors didn’t know what was wrong, but she had known he would wake up. She had felt him getting stronger and had almost had an image of his dreams. It looked like he had been in Scotland. In the meanwhile, Janus and she had been researching. They had been watching the security feed looking for a clue while Kate also tried to look up more information about the word ‘Sanheim.’ What she had found had disturbed her.

  Quinn stopped wondering how he knew all this. He was linked to Kate now, he knew. He could see her thoughts and memories and she could see his. It was strange but also exciting.

  Janus had not yet noticed he was awake. He was intently staring at the video screen. For a moment, Quinn thought he saw something familiar on the screen as a figure walked by, but then it was gone. He felt fuzzy and lightheaded. He doubt he was in much condition to do anything other than drool.

  Kate came through the door.

  “Thank God,” she said again.

  Janus looked confused, then at Quinn. When he saw that his eyes were open, he smiled.

  “Jesus fucking Christ, man,” Janus said. “You gave us quite a scare.”

  “Language,” Quinn said in what was a pale imitation of Rebecca’s near daily admonishment.

  Kate came over and kissed him. He had nearly forgotten what had happened before the Headless Horseman attacked, but it all came flooding back to him. This kiss wasn’t like those and he knew it, could feel her emotions as they were locked. This was not lust, but relief mixed with love.

  (I love you) he said in his mind and she kissed him harder.

  (I know) she responded.

  She didn’t have to say it back to him. He knew what she felt, what she thought. He was no longer clear on where Quinn ended and Kate began. That might have been disturbing, but it didn’t feel that way. It was like letting your arm go numb and suddenly regaining feeling in it. It felt natural, like they had always been this way.

  “Seriously, do I need to leave the room?” Janus asked. “You two are making me blush.”

  Kate pulled away and Quinn got a good look at her. She was dressed in makeshift clothes again, jeans and a t-shirt she had bought at the mall before they left for Bluemont. She looked like she hadn’t showered recently and her hair was frazzled. Still, Quinn thought he had never seen anything so beautiful in his life.

  (Always the charmer) she thought.

  (Sorry) he said. (I can’t help what I’m thinking)

  (Don’t try) she said. (I don’t want to try either.)

  (What have you found out about Sanheim?) he asked.

  (Quite a bit, actually, and none of it’s particularly good. Let me show you.)

  She was just starting to call up her memories to let Quinn have a look when Janus interrupted.

  “What the fuck is going on?” he asked.

  Quinn and Kate had forgotten he was even there. With effort, Quinn focused his attention on Janus. He found it extremely hard to do. It was like when Kate was around, he couldn’t concentrate on anything or anyone else. That would be a problem if he didn’t learn to control it.

  “You guys are now officially freaky and disturbing,” Janus said. “You’re just staring at each other, but you are making faces at each other like you’re talking. What the fuck?”

  “Sorry,” Kate said. “It’s just…”

  (Should we tell him?) she asked.

  (It will be hard not to) he responded.

  “You are doing it again,” Janus nearly shouted. Behind him the TV continued to play security feed from Leesburg Hotel. “Seriously.”

  (Tell us about Sanheim. Use words)

  “Okay, Janus, just hold on,” Kate said. “I’ll explain what I know. I’ve been doing some research on the Prince of Sanheim.”

  “I can’t imagine you found that much,” Janus said. “It was just a goofy legend. I don’t even know how many people heard it.”

  “Under that name, I found very little,” she said. “But once you start looking for patterns… he’s everywhere.”

  (It’s not a he, it’s a they. It takes a man and a woman. It’s like the song, ‘It takes two to make a thing go right. It takes two to make it out of sight.’)

  Kate started laughing at that and Quinn smiled. Janus just looked confused.

  “Okay, it’s a they,” she said.

  Janus was looking at them both again.

  “Dear fucking God,” he said. “You can read each other’s thoughts, can’t you?”

  “Yes,” Quinn said. “Though I have to say you jumped to that conclusion relatively quickly.”

  “I don’t know how you couldn’t jump to it, mate,” he said. “You two are smiling at the same jokes, yet you didn’t say a joke. You’re talking to each other without speaking.”

  Quinn found Janus’ reaction fascinating. He seemed unnerved, nearly frightened.

  (He is frightened) Kate thought. (Wouldn’t you be?)

  “Don’t be scared,” Kate said. “We’re still the same two people.”

  “That’s how you knew,” Janus said. “That’s how you knew about Christina. When you mentioned it the other day, I just assumed my man Quinn here had been blabbing, which would have been very unlike him. But he didn’t say a word, did he? You could read his thoughts.”

  “And his memories, yes,” Kate said.

  “How the fuck did this happen?”

  “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you,” Quinn responded.

  “Oh, at this stage, I’m willing to believe an awful lot,” Janus said.

  “We’ll get to it,” Kate said. “Back to Sanheim for a moment.”

  “How is that even related?” Janus asked.

  “Give me a chance to talk to you and I’ll tell you,” Kate said. She was testy with him, the way Quinn often was after the two had been together for several hours. Not only was she absorbing Quinn’s memories, she appeared to be absorbing his attitude too.

  “Oh my God this is freaky,” Janus said. “I’m talking to a chick that is incredibly hot and she sounds like my best friend over there, whom I’ve never found remotely attractive.”

  “Stay with me here,” Kate said. “From what I can tell, the legend of Sanheim is very, very old. I’ve been doing some research on the Net and it seems it was the Romans who first brought up Sanheim, a God they viewed as the equivalent of Hades.”

  “The Devil,” Janus said. “That’s the equivalent.”

  “It’s related but not quite the same thing,” Kate said. “Anyway, they invaded Britain under Julius Caesar, but Caesar at some point stopped. Historians point to the political crisis back in Rome as to why he had to return, but not everyone thinks so. He had four legions go over there with him, took two back and left one to guard what he had conquered. That’s a whole legion of men unaccounted for. Official history doesn’t worry about it, could just be someone’s error.”

  “But unofficially…”

  “Unofficially, he ran into the ‘champion of Hades.’ That’s why you don’t find it under any reference to Sanheim at first. But it’s the same thing to the Roma
ns. I’m not sure what happened, but apparently the two met on the battlefield. After that, Caesar headed home in a hurry.”

  “He was scared? Does that guy get scared?” Janus asked.

  “Maybe,” Kate said. “Or maybe they cut some kind of deal. Maybe he told him about political events back home. In any case, the Romans don’t invade any further until a couple centuries later.”

  “So he’s a warrior?” Quinn asked.

  “He’s everything,” Kate said. “He’s the leader, he’s the general, he’s the priest. And he keeps showing up in Celtic history. Not during every invasion, but he’s there. He’s referenced during the conquering of Wales.”

  “Fat lot of good he must have done us,” Janus said.

  “That’s just it,” Kate said. “He’s referenced as helping the English.”

  “Fuck him,” Janus said. “What’s that about?”

  “It’s not the same person,” she said. “Through history, different leaders are chosen and they each have their own agendas. Maybe this guy just didn’t like the Welsh.”

  “Imagine that,” Quinn said.

  “Well, fuck him,” Janus said.

  “Does anyone mention Sanheim directly?”

  “Yes,” Kate asked. “A guy named Robert Crowley.”

  “That’s the guy I told you about,” Janus said. “He was the ‘Prince of Sanheim.’”

  “Who was he?”

  “Nominally, he was a bad poet of the Romantic era,” Kate said. “But he went crazy, even by Lord Byron’s standards. In 1873, he declared that his father was not Sir Richard Crowley, but a powerful Irish chieftain. He summoned followers to his home for what he promised would be the revelation of the ‘Prince of Sanheim.’”

  “Sounds like a nutter.”

  “Here’s what interesting,” she said. “He summoned women first. And just so you don’t think everyone was repressed in that day and age, many came.”

  “He started an orgy?” Janus said.

  “I think he was looking for someone,” Kate said, and she looked meaningfully at Quinn. “He was looking for the right woman.”

  “The kind that would live out his fantasies?”

  “The kind that would trigger the ‘Trial of the Cennad,’” Kate said.

  “I was really hoping we were going to talk in more detail about the orgies,” Janus said.

  “A man and a woman joining is the key, Janus,” Kate said. “There’s this weird Web site some group in England set up that’s devoted to Crowley. It would be disturbing if it wasn’t so damn helpful. But they list all of his poetry, which is really, really bad, filled with love, sex, death and more sex. But he has an entire poem on the ‘joining.’ It’s all about sex, of course, but this one is different from the others. This is the kind of sex that links the body and the mind.”

  “It links the souls,” Quinn said. “Two become one.”

  “That’s one horny guy,” Janus said, and then he paused. “Wait a second. They are linked in body and mind, which means they…”

  “Right,” Quinn said quickly.

  “You two?” Janus said. “That’s how come you guys are suddenly the picture of weirdness? You had sex and now you are…”

  “It’s not what we are,” Kate said. “It’s what we’re becoming. Quinn and I are linked now. I have a feeling it becomes even stronger once the trial is passed.”

  “Was it any different than normal sex?” Janus asked. When he saw the look on Quinn’s face, he continued. “Look, normally I would just wait to ask Quinn when he was alone, but since you two are one now anyway, what’s the point, right?”

  Quinn wasn’t going to answer. He was opening his mouth to say it was private when Kate replied.

  “Very. Imagine knowing exactly what your partner wants a half second before they even know they want it,” she said. “No awkwardness, embarrassment. No accidentally doing the wrong thing. It’s like everything is choreographed.”

  “That sounds pretty fucking awesome,” Janus said.

  “Yeah,” both Kate and Quinn said at the same time, and they looked at each other. Quinn didn’t want to think about sex right now. Or rather, that was all he wanted to think about, but if he did, if they lost themselves to that again, they would be dead.

  “So that’s the deal. The two have sex and…”

  “Sex changes everything,” Kate said. “That’s what Madame Zora told me when she read my future. It was in the Tarot cards: The Devil, which represented lust and sex.”

  “What else did she tell you?” Janus asked.

  “The next card was Death,” Kate said.

  “Oh. I’m going to go out on a limb and say that isn’t so good.”

  “Death can also mean transformation,” Kate responded.

  “Really? Cause usually, when you use it in a story and whatnot, it just means death,” Janus said.

  “Jump back for a second,” Kate said. “We aren’t done with Crowley. He hosts this party, right? Women come from all around.”

  “So he can join with as many as possible?” Janus asked.

  “I don’t think so,” Kate said. “So he could find the right one. The Web site is vague-everything here is reading between the lines. Crowley was basically holding try-outs. I think by himself he was just a guy, but he believed if he found the right woman and they had sex…”

  “He would become the Prince of Sanheim,” Janus said.

  “Bingo,” Quinn said.

  “Which means what, exactly? All you can eat at the local Irish pub?”

  “I don’t know,” Kate said. “I know it triggers the ‘Trial of the Cennad.’ But I don’t know what that means.”

  “The Headless Horseman,” Quinn said. “He’s part of that trial. He has to be.”

  Quinn could vaguely remember his dream before he woke up. He had been talking to someone-he couldn’t remember who-but the man had told him something.

  “You are what you fear,” he said.

  Kate nodded.

  (You created him) she thought. (He’s your cennad.)

  (Which means what, exactly?)

  (It’s ancient Gaelic for ambassador)

  “Stop doing that please,” Janus said. “Not all of us are tuned in to Kate-and-Quinn’s FM Sex Radio.”

  “Sorry,” Quinn said. “Look, my parents read me ‘The Legend of Sleepy Hollow’ when I was a kid and I loved it. Loved it. I made them read it to me every night. Finally, my Dad, as a surprise, got me the Disney cartoon version of it. And it scared the hell out of me. I couldn’t sleep for weeks after that, and boy, was my Mom pissed at him for showing it to me. He figured that since I had read the story, I was ready. But I wasn’t.”

  “So the Headless Horseman is the thing you feared,” Kate said. “That’s why he attacked us.”

  “Can I just remind everyone that he’s made up?” Janus said. “He doesn’t exist.”

  “No, he didn’t exist,” Kate said. “But he does now.”

  “Because you two had sex?”

  “Dee saw him before this,” Quinn said. “That man near Phillips Farm heard a horseman late at night. And that was before we, uh, made love.”

  “Just a guess: it was after you met me,” Kate said. “Before you did, he was just a dream. Once you and I started getting closer, the Horseman became more real. But he wasn’t solid flesh-ready to attack us-until we had sex. That triggered the trial.”

  “And the trial is what? He shows up and puts Quinn on the witness stand?”

  “I could be wrong, but I think it’s a bit simpler than that,” Kate said. “We kill him or he kills us.”

  “Awesome,” Janus said. “That’s just great, because last time I checked there was someone else that wanted to kill you two. You are very popular with the psycho set this year.”

  “What happens if we succeed?” Quinn asked.

  “I don’t know,” Kate asked. “But I do know that at least at first, everything is tied to Halloween. That’s the apex of the Prince’s power and his lowest poi
nt is…”

  “Nov. 1, All Saint’s Day,” Quinn said.

  “So whatever power is gained is lost at the stroke of midnight,” Kate said.

  “What happened to Crowley?” Janus asked. “What did he do with his power?”

  “I don’t know if he succeeded or failed,” Kate said. “But he held his party. It wasn’t a huge gathering, but it was enough. Maybe fifty to hundred.”

  “Fifty men went up a hill,” Janus said. “None of them came down.”

  “What happened?” Quinn asked, but he already knew.

  “No one who attended that party was ever seen again,” Kate responded. “They found the castle where he threw it totally abandoned.”

  “Fifty men went to see him,” Janus continued. “None of them were found.”

  “But they found something else, didn’t they?” Quinn asked.

  “Yes,” Kate said. “The Web site had a lot to say about that.”

  “What did they find?” Janus asked.

  “They found a message written on the wall,” Kate said. “It was written in blood.”

  “Let me guess,” Janus said. “It said, ‘Need more beer.’”

  No one laughed.

  “No,” Kate said. “It said, ‘The Prince of Sanheim is Risen. May God Have Mercy On Your Souls.’”

  Chapter 21

  Tuesday, Oct. 24

  Quinn idly tapped his pen on his notepad as he waited for the press conference to start. It was already 10 minutes late and reporters were buzzing around the small room in the police station. It was late October, but the room was hot. Quinn wanted to open a window, but he was afraid to lose his chair. It was standing room only.

  There were reporters here from everywhere- The Washington Post, The Washington Times, maybe even The New York Times, he wasn’t sure. They had all gotten wind of what Sheriff Brown was supposed to announce. Lord Halloween is back. After a 12-year absence, Virginia’s most-wanted serial killer had returned, from the dead no less, as the man police had pinned the murders on had long since died.

  None of this was news to Quinn, of course. But journalism is a pack business and the pack followed the major news outlets. The Loudoun Chronicle could have reported a month ago that the killer had returned, but it wouldn’t matter until the bigger papers got a hold of it. Once they did, only then would the story exist.