Night Terrors (Sarah Beauhall Book 4) (42 page)

I choked out a laugh. My locks were comely. And Jimmy was dead.

“He is a great man,” I said, wiping my face.

“Of that there is no doubt,” she said smiling. “Let him ride with us, give us leave to take him from this place.”

Why was she asking my permission? What if I refused, that then?

“My fierce warrior,” she said, standing and pulling me up by my hands. “He will remain dead, no matter your decision. You only choose the manner of his eternity.”

What was I going to tell Deidre? What about Gunther or Stuart?

“Take him,” I said, pulling my hands out of hers. “He deserves a glorious afterlife. But don’t think I’m doing this with a glad heart.”

She stepped around me, knelt at Jimmy’s side and touched his shattered face. “So very handsome, he was. He will be even more so in the next world when his valor will show through.”

She rose, and Jimmy rose with her. Rather his spirit did.

“What is this?” Gunnr asked me, brushing thick strands of white from Jimmy’s spirit.

“Something of the elves,” I said, pointing to Skella. “To keep his spirit from being lost in the Sideways.”

Gunnr glanced down at Skella and smiled. “She was right to do so,” she concluded, brushing several more strands of white goo from Jimmy’s form. As a spirit he looked as handsome as the day I’d met him, tall and strong, his gaze confident and his will strong.

“Tell him I’m sorry,” I said as Gunnr pulled him free of his body finally.

“When he is ready for the hearing,” she assured me. “But let us go.”

She walked to the door, Jimmy trailing behind her, staring forward as if he were in a trance. I guess he was, being newly dead and all.

“Look for your friend,” she pointed to where Bub had lain. “In a day or so, he will come to you, drawn to the amulet.”

“Thank you,” I said. I really wanted the little guy back, but I couldn’t think through the pain.

“Take your love home,” she said, opening the door and ushering Jimmy out. Skuld and Róta took him by an arm each and walked him to a large horse. I stepped out of the classroom, stunned. “Blue Thunder?” I asked, and looked back at Gunnr who smiled. “Every warrior needs a worthy steed,” she said. “We would not let a beast such as this escape into oblivion.”

I watched them mount and gallop into the sky. Jimmy never looked back, but Gunnr did. The look she gave me was as much lust as loss.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered.

“Sarah!” Skella yelled from the classroom.

I looked back at the classroom. “Out here,” I said. But when I looked back to the sky they were gone.

Skella careened against the doorframe in a panic. “Jimmy’s … dead …” she said between sobs. And Bub’s gone. She swiped at her face, pushing the tears away with anger. “Why are you out here?”

“Long story,” I said, putting my arm over her shoulder. “Let’s get all this crap out of here. I’ll need to tell Deidre.”

Dena took the ambulance and headed back to Black Briar. We debated on calling the authorities for Jimmy but then thought better of it. If Qindra could make people disappear, I’m sure she could help us fake Jimmy’s death in a way that wouldn’t raise suspicions.

But I wanted to get his body back to Black Briar. Deidre would want to bury him, or whatever. For all I knew she’d burn him on a pyre. I would.

We loaded Jimmy into the back of the truck, covered him with tarps, loaded the mirror and the travois, making sure to gather up any stray bits of cloth or wood.

I set the teddy bear on the dashboard. She needed to be washed and mended. There were several rips and she was soaked in blood. Katie would want her when she woke up.

We took the time to mop the place up and reset the desks. When we were done, the classroom smelled of bleach. I’d ask Qindra to come here and do a cleansing. The kids didn’t need this form of energy.

Skella rode back to Black Briar with me instead of taking the mirror home. She wanted to be there, wanted to help with Jimmy, with Deidre.

I couldn’t call Deidre. I was too cowardly. But we called Gunther. He’d need to be there. It was only right.

I called Stuart as well. He and Qindra were on their way home from Portland. I didn’t say what the problem was, but I told him to bring Qindra to Black Briar. That alone told him something horrible had happened.

Sixty-two

We pulled into Black Briar, the ambulance first, then me in the pickup. When I crossed onto the property, the fence erupted, shooting flames a hundred feet into the air. Not just near the house, but the whole fence, all the way around the property. As far as we could see from the house, anyway. The flames burned long enough for me to pull around the house and park in front of the deck.

The yard was jammed with vehicles, and more were coming in behind me. Not sure if the flames cut off the driveway. Looked like Gunther had called the whole phone tree.

I was out of the truck and half way to the back porch when Deidre came rolling out of the house.

“Where’s Jim?” she asked, looking from my truck to the ambulance where Dena and Melanie were standing. Skella stayed back leaning against the truck.

I kept walking, eyes dry, looking at Gunther who stood behind Deidre, his hand on her chair. I know I looked like hell, covered in blood and bandages.

“Where’s my husband?” Deidre asked, her voice shriller and higher.

Gunther put his hand on her shoulder, but she pushed it off.

“God damn it, Beahaull,” she broke, a sob breaking her composure.

I dropped to my knees at her side, taking her hands in my own. “I’m sorry,” I said, looking at her, watching the light go out of her eyes.

“No,” she whispered. “Not Jim.” She pulled her hands away from mine.

“We found Katie,” I said, my throat felt like I had swallowed broken glass. “He saved her, Deidre. Saved us all.”

“Where?” she begged, reaching over her shoulder to take Gunther’s hand suddenly. He gently placed it on her shoulder where she grabbed it like she was drowning.

Gunther looked at me and I stood, turning back to the truck. “We brought him home,” I said, feeling the way the crowd that had formed held their breath. “It’s not a show,” I growled, scrubbing my eyes. I walked back to the truck. “Somebody open the barn,” I shouted, climbing into my truck. “And the rest of you clear the fuck out of here.”

I started the truck, pulled it around to the barn, where Trisha was pulling the big doors wide. I drove into the center of the barn and stopped, my head on the steering wheel. This was where we sparred, where no vehicle had ever been. This was Jimmy’s domain. The heart of it all. He’d built this place with his own hands and the hands of his clan after the dragon had burned the last barn. This was the focus of the rebuilding—not just of the buildings, but of our spirits.

Once inside, the big door shut and for a brief instant I was alone in the darkness with Jim in the back, quiet as a church mouse.

After a minute, the side door opened and Deidre rolled into the barn followed by Gunther. No one else. It seemed right for the moment.

Gunther flipped on the overheads and I climbed out of the truck, walked around and opened the lift gate.

“I can’t see anything in this damn chair,” Deidre said, her voice icy.

“Raise it,” Gunther said, walking around her to hop into the back of the truck.

Deidre fumbled with the controls of her chair, and the hydraulics began to whine as she raised the seat. It was the Harley Davidson of wheel chairs. She could damn near stand up in the thing, the way it contorted up all the while keeping her strapped in.

Once she was tall enough to see over the lip of the truck bed, Gunther knelt down and lifted the corner of the tarp. He dropped it quickly, looking back.

“It’s true,” he whispered, his face ashen.

Deidre began to wail. I sat on the lip of the truck, frozen in horror. Gunther knelt there, staring down at his hands and the world grew darker.

Time stopped with that wail. It was the worst sound I’d ever heard, worse than the dragon roar, worse than the necromancer curse, worse than the nightmares that haunted me night after night.

And Deidre wailed, her voice cracking and failing, only to renew again within seconds.

Soon an echo rose outside the barn, the voices of Black Briar rising to let the world know that their leader had truly fallen.

Sixty-three

Bub showed up on Tuesday. He looked thinner than normal, but he remembered everything that happened up until the point he’d been killed. He never wanted to go back into the Sideways, understandably. We got him fed and bedded down with the troll twins that first day, keeping the harsh news about Jimmy from him.

But we couldn’t keep him in the dark forever. When we told him about Jimmy he cried and cried. The troll twins consoled him as best they could, but it wasn’t until Jai Li stepped in that he finally calmed down.

Deidre was in shock, as you might expect. She promised she didn’t hate me, but she wouldn’t make eye contact with me. I explained to her about the Valkyrie, but she didn’t seem to hear me. Gunther assured me he’d make sure she understood in the end. Stuart and Gunther rallied their squads once things got into motion. They took over the running of Black Briar while Deidre hid herself away in the great house. Qindra stayed briefly that first afternoon, but went back across the water to break the news to Nidhogg. She and Stuart held each other for a long time before she left, a mixture of two worlds. It felt right. She promised to go to the school as well. She’d make it right there, keep that from the students.

There was no dissent from the troops. While Qindra was an outsider, and a servant of the enemy, things were not quite so simple. All that was in transition. Jimmy had been the hardest to bend on that subject of who was an enemy, and his passing had broken the spirit of the most ardent hater. It helped that Gunther supported her being there, and Stuart was quick to defend her to anyone who made any noise.

Deidre voiced no opinion, glanced once at Qindra and Stuart holding hands, nodded her approval and looked way.

We had no idea what it meant that the fences burned. Gunther sent crews out to check on the entire length of it and start the rebuilding. I guess bringing Jimmy’s lifeless body home had broken the magic that protected the farm.

We’d have to do something about that.

In the meantime, Katie didn’t come out of her coma, not that day or the following days. Doubt began to creep through the farm. The thought that Jimmy had fallen for nothing was passed around the barracks from time to time, but Trisha and her crew squashed it whenever they heard it. It just took time. Her body was a mess, they reminded everyone. She’d recover any day now.

We waited, hoping, praying that she’d wake, but she didn’t.

Eventually we had our pyre, sent Jimmy’s mortal remains into the sky amid the smoke of ash and birch. We added sage and lavender to the flames to keep any stray spirits at bay. I knew his had gone on to Valhalla, but it was best to be sure.

Deidre insisted on making a huge meal for the wake, and Black Briar pitched in. Old members from days gone by returned to visit, folks I’d never met. There was one gentleman in his late fifties, Jeremiah Fletcher that Gunther and Stuart treated with a reverence one would expect of a respected elder. He had been a friend and compatriot of Jim and Katie’s parents. I didn’t talk to him, but caught him looking my way from time to time.

I sat in the back of the crowd with Mary, Edith, and Julie hovering in my orbit. It was strange to be alone in this crowd of comrades. I was a part of Black Briar and separated at the same time.

Trisha ran the kitchen despite Deidre’s best attempt. Her heart just wasn’t in it. At one point Jai Li broke away from the other kids and went to Deidre, crawled into her lap and held her while she cried.

It was something I had no power to do, but that child of ours had a gift.

Later that night, as the drinking and singing began, Deidre came to me and hugged me, forgave me for Jimmy’s death, though she assured me I wasn’t responsible.

Sometimes you needed to assuage the guilt whether it was rightly owned or not. I know I’d carry it in my heart ’til the end of days. It just as well could’ve been me going through that door first, confronting the evil bastard. It didn’t have to be Jimmy. But that was his way. Saving Skella from that murdering bastard was something Jim did on instinct. No thought to his own safety. Always a protector.

It was a glorious celebration and the bleakest day in my life. Long after dark fell, while the wake roared into a raucous party on Jimmy’s behalf, I found myself in the old barn with Bub. He knew exactly where Katie had carved her love to me. It had been spared from the dragon fire, back in the corner that he’d claimed for his nest.

Light from the celebration was enough for me to see where she’d carved my name in the wood. She’d tied our names together with an intricate chain of Celtic knots. The word love glowed as the light from the halogen lights around the farm found its way into the ruins.

I couldn’t breathe in that space, the smoke and ash of the old life choking me. In the end I fled, out past the lights, out to the copse of trees where I’d once kissed a Valkyrie. Here I could think. Here I could breathe.

But I couldn’t stand. I fell to my knees and wept, my tears cutting through the ash that covered my face.

The pain was too much, the hole in my soul too deep. If she didn’t wake, I was lost. I had no concept how I could possibly go on without her.

And I knew without Katie, Black Briar had no place for me.

Sixty-four

A week passed like blinking. Black Briar was a house under siege. Gunther and Anezka stayed out there most nights, and Stuart was there for dinner every night. Jai Li and I stayed out at Circle Q after the funeral. I just couldn’t handle the blanket of pain and anguish that smothered the place.

It was Wednesday a week later that I got the call from Charlie Hague. The meeting with Madame Gottschalk had been so long ago, I’d blocked it from my memory. He said he wanted to make the exchange for the rings, bring Rasputin’s knife back to the Mordred crew as we’d promised.