Give the Devil His Due (The Sanheim Chronicles, Book Three) (16 page)

Quinn smiled and nodded. He had always worried that Kyle was right. It was Sanheim who had made Quinn believe that you are what you fear. But when he thought about how powerful a hold Kate had on him, or Sawyer had on Elyssa, the very idea that fear was the most powerful emotion seemed downright ludicrous.

His reverie was interrupted by more movement in the corn.

Elyssa still held the knife she had wrested from the clown. Quinn wished bitterly he hadn’t lost his in the vortex. Quinn noticed that she took the lead position. Was it a sign that she now trusted Quinn? Or just that she realized he wasn’t the primary threat to her right now?

She came to a break in the corn, with one path going off to the right and another leading to the left. A sign hanging on a cornstalk in front of them read, “Choose wisely.”

Elyssa looked back at Quinn for guidance. He shrugged and pointed to the left. It was Janus who stopped him.

“Not that way,” Janus said.

“How do you know?” Quinn asked.

His friend looked at him with bewilderment in his eyes.

“I have no idea,” he replied. “But when I look to the left, it just feels… wrong. The right feels safer.”

Quinn remembered how Janus had broken through the exit from the Haunted Mansion as if it were made of papier mâché. It seemed significant but he couldn’t figure out why.

“We’ll go to the right then,” Quinn said.

The three of them walked along the path to the right, which shortly curved back to the left on a parallel course to the one they had just been on. Quinn could just make out where the sign hung on the other side of the cornstalks. As they kept moving, he occasionally caught glimpses of the path that had led to the left. It appeared to be the correct one, heading toward an opening with light, what Quinn presumed was the center of the maze.

He was just about to mention that they should return that way when he caught a glimpse of a scarecrow step out of the corn and onto the other path. Before Quinn could shout a warning to Elyssa or Janus, two gigantic blades sprang from the ground where the scarecrow had stepped, slicing him in half. Just as quickly, the blades disappeared into the earth again, leaving a dismembered corpse and a small cloud of dust. Quinn looked at Janus in surprise and awe.

“Uh, good call there, buddy,” Quinn said.

Janus just nodded, clearly shaken. He looked more anxious now.

Elyssa called back to them, and they could see they had hit another fork in the road. A similar “Choose wisely” sign hung on the cornstalk in front of them. Janus stood in front of it for a few minutes before choosing the left path.

“Are you sure?” Quinn asked.

“Look on the bright side, if I’m wrong, we’ll all die very quickly.”

“Why is that the bright side?” Elyssa asked.

“Because if Lord Halloween gets us, we’re going to die slowly.”

“Way to think positive, Janus,” Quinn said.

“I can find the silver lining in every cloud. It’s a gift,” Janus said.

This time, Quinn never had a clear opportunity to know what would have happened had they ignored Janus’ intuition. Still, he heard something massive hit the ground and a slow rumble not far away, suggesting that Janus had chosen correctly once again. The fact that their own path was uneventful only confirmed that impression.

It was the same through the next four choices. Every time, Janus would weigh the options and each time, they survived. On one occasion, Quinn saw a jet of flame shoot into the sky from the path they hadn’t taken.

Quinn gave Janus a whole new appraisal. Of course he’d been glad to see his best friend again. But now he saw Janus in an entirely different light. He wasn’t sure if Janus’ ability to pick the right direction was supernatural or just an uncanny intuition. Either way, he was saving their lives.

Another thing was also clear. The number of scarecrows following them was increasing. Quinn had yet to see much — a flash of flannel here, some leftover straw lying on the path — but he knew they were out there. From the sound of it, there had to be dozens ahead, behind and to the side of them. They hadn’t attacked, but their presence made Quinn increasingly uneasy. He sensed that they were waiting for something.

When the scarecrows weren’t moving, all they could hear was the sound of the corn stalks rustling in the wind. Quinn looked at the moon up in the sky and wondered where they were. It didn’t look like Halloweenland or the world where he’d been before that.

“Another fork in the road, Janus,” Elyssa called back.

As he had five times before, Janus stared thoughtfully at the sign in front of him.

“I think it’s...” Janus said.

He started to gesture, but he was interrupted by a sudden eruption through the corn row. A scarecrow burst forth from between the stalks and grabbed Janus. Before Quinn could even react, the scarecrow dragged Janus into the field behind him.

“Quinn, help!” Janus screamed before the rows of corn swallowed him whole.

*****

Quinn didn’t hesitate, but ran directly for the spot in the corn where Janus had disappeared. He pushed through and heard Elyssa follow behind him. The corn scratched his arms and face, but Quinn kept moving. He felt like he was swimming through corn.

“Help!” Janus’ voice called from the left.

Quinn couldn’t see a thing beyond a few stalks of corn in front of him, but he darted in that direction. He could just make out a figure crashing through the corn ahead of him.

He wasn’t sure how a scarecrow dragging a grown man could move faster than him, yet somehow they slipped away again, vanishing in the layers of corn.

Quinn suddenly emerged on a path, but couldn’t see where Janus and his kidnapper had gone. He looked around frantically for some sign. He spotted a bent stalk further up the path and began running in that direction.

As he ran forward, he started to hear a clicking noise coming from all around him. The earth began to vibrate.

Before he could look down, another figure sprinted out of the corn and knocked him off his feet, dragging him into the row of corn behind him. For a minute, Quinn tried to throw off his attacker before he realized it was Elyssa — and she had just saved his life.

He looked between the corn stalks at the ground where he had been standing just a moment before. Two circular blades had emerged from the ground and were whirring back and forth. After a few seconds, they retracted into the dirt.

Quinn didn’t wait to see what happened next. He looked at Elyssa, a determined expression in his eyes.

“I am not going to lose him again,” Quinn said.

She just nodded, and he ran out onto the path again, barely pausing as he pushed into the corn where he had seen evidence of Janus’ abductor.

The cornhusks beat his face, but Quinn didn’t slow down. He watched for any movement around him.

He was running blind, hoping he would stumble onto Janus. Just as he was about to give up hope, he heard something moving on the right and thought he heard a muffled cry for help.

“Right,” he said for Elyssa’s benefit, and darted in that direction.

The wall of corn in front of him was like an impenetrable swamp. He moved as quickly as he could, pushing cornstalks aside, but everything looked so damn similar there was no way to mark his location. It was just an endless sea of corn in every direction.

He emerged on the path again and abruptly stopped to see if he could get clear evidence of Janus’ abductor. He walked forward only a few steps — and heard the clicks again. He immediately jumped out of the way.

Elyssa must have heard them too, because although she was close behind him, he heard her stop while she was still in the corn field.

Quinn watched as the ground where he had been walking opened up. He gave it just a brief look, peeking inside and seeing nothing but darkness.

“A bottomless pit, no doubt,” Elyssa said, though Quinn didn’t care anymore.

He had spotted some bent corn stalks to the left and began his pursuit again. From somewhere in front of him, he thought he heard another muffled scream.

Quinn tried not to let panic get to him. Once before he’d rushed after Janus, trying to find him before it was too late, but he hadn’t made it in time. When he’d arrived, Janus was dead.

The memory spurred him on. He wasn’t going to let history repeat itself. This time, he would save him.

The thought had no more crossed his mind when he heard something coming at him from his left. He didn’t have time to react before a scarecrow slammed into him. The scarecrow’s sheer momentum knocked Quinn off his feet. Quinn stared up into his carved pumpkin face.

He saw Elyssa run up, but he waved her on.

“Catch up to Janus,” Quinn said. “I’ll get this guy.”

Even though she had the knife, Quinn didn’t want her to waste her time. Someone needed to track Janus.

Quinn wrestled with the scarecrow on the ground. The scarecrow grabbed a rock and tried to bring it down on Quinn’s head, but he blocked the blow. Using his legs, Quinn kicked out, knocking the scarecrow off him.

Immediately, he rolled over on top of the scarecrow, searched the ground for the same rock, and grabbed it with his hand. With one smooth motion, he brought the stone down onto the scarecrow’s pumpkin head.

Quinn idly noted that while a pumpkin head was damn scary, it was no match for the protection of a skull. The scarecrow’s pumpkin face caved in easily as the rock hit him, collapsing into a pile of orange mush. The thing’s body stopped struggling underneath Quinn.

He didn’t stop to savor his victory, but jumped to his feet and ran off in the direction Elyssa had gone. But he felt more lost than ever.

“Elyssa!” he called. “Janus!”

He paused for a moment to listen. Before, there had been lots of movement through the stalks, but now he heard nothing.

Something had happened to Elyssa as well as Janus, Quinn realized. There was no one calling for him anymore. The smart strategy was to wait and assess the situation.

But Quinn couldn’t make the smart play anymore. He ran ahead, hoping he was heading in the right direction, regardless of whether he was running into a trap. He was determined not to fail Janus a second time. At the very least, this time he would die by his side.

Quinn had just a moment to register the faint glow of red in front of him before he emerged into an open clearing. He took one look around and realized he had somehow arrived at the center of the maze.

What looked like hundreds of scarecrows were waiting for him. They stood with torches in their hands, arranged in a neat semi-circle with more behind the first row. As soon as Quinn arrived at the center of their ring, they closed in behind him. Quinn was completely surrounded.

He heard a muffled call, and a single scarecrow emerged from the mob carrying Elyssa. He was holding a knife to her throat, but didn’t keep it there, instead pushing her to the ground by Quinn. She stood up and brushed the dirt off her.

“Where’s Janus?” Quinn asked her.

“I don’t know,” she replied. “They were waiting for me when I arrived. I’m sorry.”

Quinn looked into her eyes and saw genuine regret. He scanned the crowd and called out again.

“Where’s Janus?” he yelled at the throng surrounding him.

“Up here,” a voice called back.

In his haste, Quinn hadn’t noticed the small wooden scaffold that stood at the edge of the clearing. It was crudely built, with differently sized logs lashed together in what seemed like a dangerously unstable structure. It was high, however. Quinn looked at the top, which stood nearly four stories tall.

Janus was standing there, his hands tied behind his back, a look of terror on his face. He was standing on the edge of the platform, held by an enormous scarecrow.

This one wasn’t like the others, which were roughly the size of normal people. The lead scarecrow — and there was no doubt he was in charge — was at least ten feet tall. His pumpkin head was also considerably larger, easily weighing 50 pounds.

The carving on his face was gigantic and grotesque, with overly big curved eyes, no nose and a mouth filled with carefully carved sharp teeth. He wore jeans like the other scarecrows, but he was dressed in a Guns N’ Roses t-shirt instead of the usual flannel. When he spoke, his voice was a deep, loud rumble that seemed like it would carry for miles.

“Hello, Quinn,” the lead pumpkin said, and grinned. “Nice to see you again.”

“Kyle,” Quinn replied.

“No, no,” the pumpkin responded, and pushed Janus ever so slightly forward, barely keeping his feet on the platform. “I’ve been transformed once and for all. It used to be merely an identity I used as a lark. But now I truly am Lord Halloween.”

The scarecrows around Quinn shouted in approval.

“I admit I hadn’t planned this,” the pumpkin continued. “I meant to burn you alive back in the house. But I want to thank you for stopping that plan. It’ll be more gratifying to kill you in person.”

Chapter 14

Kate walked for miles in the dark with only the moon to guide her.