A Soul To Steal (The Sanheim Chronicles, Book One) (42 page)

Quinn saw a ladder to a loft in the barn and headed straight for it. He scurried up it and started looking around for something—anything—to use against his opponent.

The Horseman followed Quinn into the barn and never slowed his pace. He started to climb the ladder, sword in hand, but Quinn kicked the top of the ladder, attempting to jar it loose. The Horseman tried to slice at his foot, but missed, and Quinn heard the satisfying sound of tearing wood, as the ladder came free.

The Horseman jumped off before it crashed to the ground.

“Did you think this would be easy?” Quinn asked. He moved around in the loft, still looking for a weapon of some kind. There was nothing but an old gas can.

The Horseman stood on the floor of the barn, his body following Quinn’s movement. But for now he stayed in one place.

“You got your smarts from me after all,” he said. “So you can’t be that stupid, right?”

Quinn was talking just to hear himself speak. He wondered how late it was. Was it 11:00 p.m.? He could try and stay up here for an hour, couldn’t he? Then the Horseman would be gone.

But he would be back next year. And then Quinn would have all year to dream about his return, waiting for next October. Quinn wasn’t doing this again. This had to end tonight.

Quinn faced him from the upper level.

“Do you know how long I was scared of you?” he asked. “I was five years old when I saw the Disney cartoon. And you scared the shit out of me. It took my Mom days to calm me down. Every time I walked through the woods, I half expected to see you there.”

The Horseman stood impassively.

“I’m not sure why I was so scared,” Quinn said. “I think I didn’t like the idea of poor Ichabod, hanging on to his horse, just trying to get home. And you wouldn’t let him.”

The Horseman moved suddenly, throwing the sword in the air in Quinn’s direction.

Quinn dropped to the ground and heard the sword slice barely above his head. The entire loft shook and Quinn could feel it about to give way.

Below, he heard the Horseman laugh. The sound bounced around the walls of the barn and seemed to come from inside Quinn’s head as well.

Scrambling to his feet, Quinn saw the sword along the back wall and picked it up. He held it in front of him, but felt ridiculous. He had no idea how to use the thing.

The Horseman strode over to the right barn wall and began pounding on it. At first, Quinn was not sure what the point was, and then it became obvious. Each blow sent a shiver through the whole building, and the wood groaned beneath Quinn’s feet. The loft was going to fall down, if the whole building didn’t first.

Quinn would have to get out of here. He held the sword in front of him, unsure of what to do next.

Boom, another blow came, and Quinn heard his floor giving way. Not thinking, Quinn dropped the sword, grabbed the gas can, still half full, and winged it in the Horseman’s direction.

Although Quinn had never been much of an athlete, his aim could not have been better. The can caught the Horseman fully in the chest, knocking him back and over. Quinn saw gasoline spill out on top of him.

He didn’t wait. He picked up the sword and threw it to the floor below, then dropped down himself.

The Horseman was still on the ground. Quinn picked up the sword and headed straight for him. This could be his only chance. He was not sure where to cut so decided he would hit him right in the chest.

He never got the chance. The Horseman picked himself up and as Quinn tried to bring a blow forward, the Horseman caught his wrist. And squeezed.

Quinn felt incredible pain and immediately dropped the sword. The Horseman released him, reached down to pick up the sword, and prepared a blow for Quinn’s head. Quinn punched the Horseman in the chest to knock him back. But the Horseman appeared unfazed.

Quinn stumbled back and looked around for any other kind of weapon. He ran over to where the gas can lay on the ground. So far it was the only thing that had done him much good.

The Horseman paused for a moment and seemed to watch Quinn’s movement.

Quinn picked up the can and stood looking at the Headless Horseman.

The Horseman came toward Quinn, and Quinn decided to run. He needed to find a better weapon than this. Maybe at least a stick or something outside could help stop any blows. As Quinn ran out into the night again, the Horseman was right on his heels. 

He turned to look behind him as the Horseman brought his sword through the air. Quinn dropped to the ground and kicked at the Horseman’s knees, hoping to throw him off balance. The Horseman fell backwards.

Grabbing the gas can again, Quinn lurched away from the Horseman, scrambling to stand up. But he tripped over something and fell headlong into the pumpkin patch. The gas can came loose and fell to the ground, spilling gasoline as it went.

Quinn landed on two pumpkins. Flailing, Quinn tried to right himself. He could hear the Horseman getting up.

Quinn grabbed a pumpkin and ran forward, trying not to trip over any other pumpkins. At the far edge of the patch, he turned and cocked back his arm to throw the pumpkin, but nearly dropped it. It was too slick and smelled of…

The Horseman paused for a moment, as Quinn and he faced off across the overgrown garden.

Kate had assured him he would know what to do. And now—finally—he did.

Reaching into his pocket, Quinn pulled out Janus’ lighter.

“You know what?” he asked. “For years, I’ve identified with Ichabod. But I think that’s over.”

He flicked the lighter with his left hand and lit the pumpkin on fire.

The Horseman started to move toward him, but it was too late. Quinn cocked the flaming pumpkin back, oblivious to the intense pain in his hand, and let it fly.

The pumpkin hit the Horseman full on in the chest and he immediately caught fire. The Horseman stumbled back and now Quinn laughed.

“I’m not Ichabod Crane,” Quinn said. “Go back to Sleepy Hollow, you headless son of a bitch.”

The Horseman was consumed in flames. The sword disappeared in a flash and the Headless Horseman appeared to burn from the outside in, collapsing in on himself. There was a mist of fire and smoke and then he was gone.

Quinn sank to his knees. His hand was in pain, but he was happy for the first time in a very long time. He had won. He felt a stirring in his blood, as if the fire were starting to spread through him. But it felt good.

Quinn had won. He had not believed he could but he had done it.

He was so relieved that he barely noticed the other figure striding toward him, who moments later stood in front of him.

“You know, Quinn, a lot of screaming and burning stuff is not the best way to hide,” Kyle said, and pulled a knife from behind him. “Let’s finish this.”

Kyle brought the knife down toward Quinn’s neck.

Chapter 25

Halloween

Kate stood by the bridge, shining her flashlight into it, and holding her gun. Her connection with Quinn had been lost. She had sensed the Horseman getting closer and then she had been cut off. She came immediately, but was forced to park behind Quinn’s car and walk to avoid the nails on the road.

There was nothing here and she fought down a sense of panic. Had Kyle gotten him? Or had the Horseman? And were either of those two, or both, now coming for her? Waiting for her?

But she heard nothing. She shone a light into the bridge and saw no trace that anyone had been there. She should have come along. She should never have agreed to stay back. They were in this together and they needed to face it that way.

She thought she heard far off laughter from up the hill. She started to walk up it carefully. As much as she wanted to help Quinn, it would not be a good idea to alert everyone to her presence. She was meant to be a surprise.

She moved up the hill steadily and then felt something strange. She stopped.

All at once a flood of images came to her, and she fell to the ground. The Horseman riding toward Quinn, dismounting and chasing him. A barn and…

A flaming pumpkin. She saw that clearly now, and all at once it was like someone had flipped a switch—she felt a burning sensation all through her.

It was happening. She saw Quinn again clearly now—actually felt him in her head—as he fell to the ground after the Horseman went up in flames. It was like it had been before in the hotel room as they made love, only stronger. She knew everything in Quinn’s head—and more. So much more.

She could see Kyle approaching and knew his plans. She could see his thoughts, his past, even where he had been hiding since his “death.” She knew it all.

Just a moment ago, she had been scared, nervous. Now that was gone. The night felt alive around her. She could feel the wind whipping the branches, the snakes on the trees, the worms in the earth. She felt everything.

There was nothing that could harm them anymore. She felt the power in her like a fire. Sadness, anxiety and doubt had been burned away. Kate started laughing and it was a joyous and awful sound at the same time. It was the laugh of someone who had seen the darkness and been consumed by it.

She saw in her mind as Kyle walked toward Quinn with the knife. She wasn’t worried.

(
Send him to me.
) Kate said in her mind, and she felt the answer hundreds of feet away. She barely needed to bother. Quinn wasn’t Quinn anymore, but her second half: the second part of the Prince of Sanheim.

Kate turned and walked steadily back down the hill.

*****

Kyle expected his knife to go cleanly into Quinn’s neck. It was considerably quicker than he would have liked to be, but he had only 40 minutes left before Halloween was technically over. This whole process was taking more time than it should have. After Quinn had disappeared into the woods, Kyle had lost his trail momentarily before he heard Quinn shouting. He really must have driven the guy crazy. He needed to finish this, find Kate, and move on.

But Quinn moved faster than Kyle thought possible. Quinn stopped the blow and held Kyle’s wrist in his hand without looking up.

When Quinn did look at him, he wished he hadn’t. Kyle looked down into a face he barely recognized. Quinn’s eyes glowed a deep red and there was nothing in them that indicated fear. Or anything at all.

Startled, Kyle tried to free his wrist, but found he could not.

“Am I scaring you?” Quinn said, and the voice wasn’t right either. It was both lower and higher than it should have been. It sounded like the voices of several people talking out of one mouth.

Kyle let the knife drop. Quinn released him and smiled.

Kyle’s mind reeled for a minute.

“What the hell is happening?” he asked.

Quinn’s smile turned into a grin.

“I thought you would have figured that out,” Quinn said, still in that strange voice. “You heard it so clearly with all your eavesdropping.”

“No,” Kyle said. “That stuff was shit. You are nuts.”

But Kyle faltered. Something had come up behind Quinn—a huge black horse whose mouth looked like it was dripping blood.

“Holy fuck,” he said out loud.

Quinn did not turn, even as the horse’s head hung over his shoulder.

“You know, I told Kate recently that our fears do not define us,” Quinn said. “I said it was what you do with your fear that matters. I was wrong. We are what we fear. Or what we fear is us.”

“This isn’t happening,” Kyle said, but he took two steps backward. “This is a trick. You dressed up that horse.”

“It’s just a ghost story, Kyle,” Quinn said. “Only this time it’s Bromm who loses.”

Kyle took another step back. He did not even pause to pick up his knife.

Quinn was changing. For him, it was as it had been in the dream—that brief moment when everything was suddenly right with the world. He was no longer afraid. He didn’t need to be. All the dark places of the world were open to him now. The horse—the horse that had only moments ago terrified him—was calling to him. Quinn knew who he was; what he was.

Before Kyle’s eyes, Quinn began to change form. His image seemed to shudder in the moonlight and transform. Kyle was forced to look away.

“This is a trick,” he said again, but even he didn’t believe it anymore.

When he looked back, Quinn no longer stood in front of him. He had been replaced by another figure, a man in a black fraying uniform. A man with no head.

“Impossible,” Kyle said under his breath.

He kept backing up and nearly tripped over his own feet.

Slowly the Headless Horseman moved to the horse and swung into the saddle. He unsheathed a sword from the scabbard at his side and held it aloft, letting the moonlight reflect off it. There was a terrible ringing in Kyle’s ears. The horse reared back as the rider swung his sword in the air.

The image stayed burned in Kyle’s mind as he turned to run. He could already hear the sound of hooves behind him.

The Headless Horseman was riding again.

*****

“Fuck this, fuck this, fuck this,” Kyle said, fleeing down the hill he had tracked Quinn up just a few minutes before. He nearly lost his footing three times, but stayed moving. He ran through the trees with all of his might, pushing branches out of his way.

He didn’t know what was going on or what had happened. One minute Quinn was kneeling on the ground, just Quinn. The next? He didn’t know. This couldn’t be real. It just couldn’t be.

He arrived at the bottom of the hill and looked back. In the moonlight at the top of the hill, he could see the Headless Horseman. Kyle heard a deep laugh that felt like it rippled across the landscape.

For the first time, it occurred to Kyle that he might die. He took off running again, hearing the crash of trees as the Horseman began to descend the hill.

Kyle ignored the bridge, running to where he had parked his car earlier in the evening. If he could make it there…

The laugh followed him and seemed to echo everywhere. But Kyle never stopped running.

He raced down the road and looked behind him. The Horseman came down the hill at a full gallop, his sword slicing through branches along the way.

Kyle saw his car ahead and frantically tried to pull his keys from his pocket. But he had trouble grabbing them and he felt terribly slow.

He could hear the Horseman gaining on him with every step.

I’m not going to make it, he thought.

Kyle wrestled the keys from his pocket and signaled to unlock the car door.

As the Horseman closed the distance between them, Kyle threw open the driver’s side door and jumped inside. He started the car and threw it into reverse, pushing it as fast as he could.

The Horseman was almost to the car.

“Shit,” Kyle said again.

He backed up, trying simultaneously to keep an eye on the rearview mirror so he could see behind him, and look in front to where the Horseman was gaining.

He could not keep driving like this. If he did, he would crash into a ditch and be stuck on foot. Kyle slammed on the brakes and turned the wheel, trying to turn the car around as fast as possible.

The Horseman kept coming and vaulted over the car. Kyle strained his neck even as he shifted into drive to try and see where it was.

When he brought the car forward, he saw the Horseman facing him on the road.

Kyle fought to hold down his panic. The man astride the horse looked more like a decaying corpse than a person, his rotted uniform on and a tattered cloak cast out behind him. As Kyle watched, the Horseman pointed his sword in the car’s direction.

Figuring it was his only chance, Kyle floored the accelerator. Cars can run over horses and besides, there was no other place to go.

The horse stood there, Kyle waiting for the inevitable collision or to see the horse move out of the way. At the last minute, the Horse jumped again, easily moving out of the car’s path.

Kyle pressed the accelerator down and the car lurched forward faster. He would just have to pick up enough speed to outpace the thing.

How far was it to the highway? He cursed the dirt road he was on. He needed to get real speed, but the traction was keeping the car going only 45 miles an hour.

The Horseman appeared to be keeping up easily, gaining ground even. As Kyle watched, the Horseman disappeared from his rearview mirror to the right.

“Shit,” Kyle said again. It was coming up alongside the car. “You aren’t real, you fuck.”

Kyle watched in his rearview mirror as the Horseman swung his sword. The blow connected, smashing the rear windshield. Kyle felt glass shards hit him in the neck and he shut his eyes momentarily.

The car jerked to the left. Kyle opened his eyes quickly and tried to keep it on the road.  He moved his car to the right and the Horseman dropped back.

Kyle saw with some relief that the main road was in front of him.

He saw the Horseman fall back even further in his mirror.

“What are you playing at?” he asked himself.

He accelerated to Route 7 in front of him and did not even pause at the stop sign as he finally pulled his car onto a paved road. Kyle shouted in triumph and pressed the accelerator to the floor.

“Let’s see if you can keep up with this,” he said.

He looked in the rearview mirror and saw nothing.

He breathed a sigh of relief, but kept the car moving fast. Its speed edged up to 80 miles an hour.

He was uncertain what his next step should be. Quinn knew who he was—if Quinn even still existed—so staying put was out of the question. He sped past houses, through stop signs and streetlights. If the cops were out here, they would just have to pull him over. He could deal with them.

Kyle knew he had to go back to his base of operations. There was too much stuff there for someone to find. If he acted now, hopefully Quinn would seem like a lunatic. After all, the DNA test would still confirm his “death.”

He kept his eye on the rearview mirror. Still nothing.

He had left the Horseman in the dust.

He sighed again and slowed down. It wouldn’t do to get a ticket. He should go back to base, pick up his stuff and leave town. Maybe someone would believe Quinn or maybe not. It wouldn’t matter. Kyle Thompson would disappear.

God, but it was frustrating. He had been so close to finishing up here. And now he was just running away.  He checked the clock in the car. It was 11:40 p.m.

Just 20 more minutes and he wouldn’t have to worry about the Horseman anymore. That part he remembered from Kate’s conversation with Janus. Given what he had seen, he had no choice but to acknowledge some of that shit must be true.

He just hoped the deadline was one part that was real.

He pulled off on Mulberry Lane, still constantly keeping one eye out for anything behind him. At an empty post where a mailbox should have been, Kyle turned left, confident that no one had followed him.

Go in, grab the stuff and go. Deadline or no deadline, it wasn’t worth sticking around to find out. Winding his way down the long driveway, he pulled the car up to the house and stopped.

For once, he wished that this house had not been his choice for a base of operations. It was rundown, its steps were treacherous, and every creak of the floorboards could be heard throughout the house.

But that was what had made it perfect. It was Charles Holober’s house, the poor schmo whom police had tapped as Lord Halloween the first time around.

From the beginning, Kyle had known it was a perfect spot. Nobody wanted to buy the land, even in the days where everything was being plowed down to make way for new luxury townhomes. Not here. A house built in a swamp standing on rotten stilts.

Kyle could not keep his collection items at his own house. That would have made for easy discoveries by any curious person. So Holober’s it had been. Kyle had befriended him 13 years before, a lonely schizophrenic hermit with a house in the swamp. Kyle had set him up of course—he had wanted a patsy for police to find so they would stop looking for the real killer.