Give the Devil His Due (The Sanheim Chronicles, Book Three) (24 page)

“Who’s in charge here?” she asked him.

A cannon shell exploded nearby and nearly blew Kate off her feet. She looked at the battle, but couldn’t tell who was winning. Not that it mattered anyway.

“Someone said they saw Col. Jackson around here somewhere,” Hatcher responded uncertainly.

That’s all I need
, Kate thought wryly. She knew that Quinn had great respect for Jackson as a tactician, but she also remembered he was eccentric and difficult. The last thing she wanted was to try to give orders through him.

“No,” Kate said. “I’m in charge. I called you here, remember?”

Hatcher nodded, but looked distinctly uneasy.

“Yes, Ma’am,” he said again.

“I need you to find the commanding officer, whoever he is,” she said. “We need to call a cease fire immediately.”

“Ma’am, I’m not in any position…”

“I’m in charge now and you need to find him!” Kate ordered.

Hatcher took a step back.

“Yes, Ma’am,” he said, and quickly disappeared.

It wouldn’t be enough though, and she knew it. She’d be lucky if Jackson — or whoever it was — listened to the lowly private. Most likely, they’d keep right on fighting.

It was time to take a different approach.

Kate, still in the form of the banshee, closed her eyes and concentrated. She let the sounds of the battle fade away. She dredged both Quinn’s memory and her own for the images she needed.

She started to project what she knew of the aftermath of the Civil War. She was careful to avoid images that might incite more hostility — the burning of Atlanta, for example — and instead concentrate on the economic and personal devastation the war had cost both sides. She showed images of women mourning their lost husbands, of children waiting for fathers who would never come home. She showed devastated towns with no young men left in them, mothers without help for their farms. She let the images gather around her, then radiated them outward.

She pushed with all her psychic powers, radiating sadness and loss. She laced it with words,
“This is the cost of your war. Lay down your arms.”

The battle continued to rage around her at first, but then slowly she could sense her message getting through. From somewhere, she thought she heard the words “Cease fire.” She didn’t stop, instead continuing to focus on the images of mourning women and children and towns abandoned. She continued until instead of fighting, all she heard was weeping.

“Ma’am,” a voice said in front of her. “Ma’am, you can stop. He called for a ceasefire.”

But she didn’t stop. She wanted them to know. She wasn’t angry anymore, but they had to understand what their fight had cost them and their loved ones. Most of all, she needed them to understand it was over. She showed them images of the rest of history, showing other wars where the North and South fought side-by-side, and how the world had moved on.

“Ma’am,” Hatcher’s voice called to her. “Please stop. We don’t want to see anymore.”

Kate stopped. When she opened her eyes, every spirit on the battlefield was looking at her. Instead of battle formations, they had broken lines and surrounded her in a circle. She saw young men and older ones, many with tears in their eyes. There were thousands of them.

“Your fight is over!” she called out, and she knew they could hear her. “Some of you already know this. Some of you went home again, even if your soul remained here. Even for those who rose where you fell, you understand now. The war was over a long time ago. The fight you carry within your hearts must also end.”

She saw Hatcher and several others nodding. Still, she noticed a few angry faces in the crowd, shaking their heads.

“Do you wish to stay here?” she asked. “Do you want to keep re-fighting your old battles, nursing your old wounds? That is why you remained here. When you died, you saw the light. You knew there was a way forward, a path out. But some of you were confused, and many of you were still angry and grief-stricken. You didn’t want to leave. You weren’t ready. And so you remained here, waiting. And when I gave you form again, you chose to use it to repeat your old mistakes. Is that what you want? Or do you want another way?”

More men nodded.

“That is what I’m here to offer,” she said. “I am your last chance to move on. If you stay, you will remain trapped here until the end of time. But if you come with me, I can show you a new world and a new hope. To find it, each of you must put away the past. You cannot let it rule you any longer. I know how difficult that is, but I have done it myself. You can too. Let me show you how.”

She looked out at the sea of faces, many of them still with tears in their eyes. She had been angry at them, but she understood why they had acted as they did. Hadn’t she been the same? Instead of searching for a way to help Quinn, she had been trapped in her past, confronting an enemy she had already defeated. That was over for her; it would soon be over for them.

“I won’t lie to you; this is another battle,” Kate said. “But not against each other. It is a fight to overcome your past, to break down the walls that have kept you away from your loved ones and to build a new life. Are you ready for this?”

The crowd erupted in cheers, and Kate noticed that the lines of blue and gray had begun to merge. They were no longer looking suspiciously at each other, but focused on her.

“Come with me,” Kate called. “We have a long journey ahead of us — and more of your fallen comrades to find. But I will lead you away from all this. Follow me and I will bring you to your true home. I am the last and I will set you free.”

The spirits surged toward her and one by one disappeared, joining her invisible army. When she looked around the moonlit battlefield, she realized they were all now with her.

When she left, the battlefield of Manassas was truly silent — finally at peace.

Chapter 20

After four days of walking, Quinn forced his companions to rest at the bottom of a mountain.

He was amazed at their stamina and endurance. In death, they didn’t need to eat or drink, and they seemed to replenish their physical energy after pausing for only a few minutes.

He had no way of knowing for sure, but Quinn estimated they averaged more than 40 miles a day. The mountain that had been no more than a distant speck on the landscape was now in front of them.

The only flaw was they still needed to sleep. It was nowhere near as often as in the mortal world, but it seemed they couldn’t go too long without needing a mental break. Quinn didn’t know why. Maybe it was the nature of consciousness — it just couldn’t go an infinite period without rest. Certainly he’d felt refreshed and rejuvenated when he slept a few days ago, even with Sanheim appearing in his dreams.

There was also a darker possibility. Sanheim seemed to rule over dreams, which was how Quinn had first met him two years ago. Just as Sanheim determined who controlled various fiefdoms, maybe he ensured they slept so he could keep in contact with people. It raised the daunting question: would he dream of Sanheim tonight?

After they decided to camp for the night, Quinn all but collapsed into the red grass. A few minutes later, he was dimly aware of Buzz building a fire without matches.

“I was in ‘Nam, Janus, I know how to do this,” Buzz said.

It was the last thing Quinn remembered before he fell asleep.

It seemed like just five minutes later when someone put their hand on his chest. He started to scream but a hand covered his mouth.

“Shhhhh,” a soft female voice said.

With that, Elyssa crawled on top of Quinn and kissed him.

Quinn was immediately aware of two things. The first was that Elyssa’s tongue was halfway down his throat before he could tell her to stop. The second was that she was naked.

Elyssa was dangerous, ruthless and morally ambiguous, but she was also extremely attractive. He didn’t want to, but Quinn noticed how her breasts felt against his chest, and how her long legs wrapped around his hips.

He had a fleeting thought — “I wonder…” — but squashed it. Some part of him might wonder what it would feel like to have sex with Elyssa, but he was never going to find out.

Quinn pulled his head away, hoping that she would back off once he made his wishes clear. Instead, she stayed on top of him, her face hovering inches from his.

“Come on,” she said. “Kate’s not here, the others are asleep. You turned me down once. Why not find out what you missed?”

“Not going to happen,” Quinn said. “Please get off me.”

Instead, she pressed herself more tightly to him and started to kiss his neck.

“Get off, Elyssa,” he said more adamantly.

“Oh, I plan to,” she purred at him.

Quinn closed his eyes and shoved her off him. He tried to do it gently, but ended up using more force than he planned, given the adrenaline surging through his body. Elyssa tumbled into the grass beside him. She sprang back a moment later, once again inches from his face.

But this time her hands were out front and she was clawing at Quinn’s face. He managed to grab her wrists and hold them away with effort.

“How dare you?” she hissed.

“Would you stop trying to hurt me so we could talk for a second?”

For a moment, he thought she wouldn’t comply. She pushed her hand toward his eye, her long nail nearing his eyeball. Quinn braced his legs to kick her, no longer worried about being gentle.

But she suddenly pulled her hand back and stood up, allowing Quinn to see her naked body by the remaining glow of the fire. She started to walk away.

“Elyssa,” he whispered, noting the three others sleeping nearby. “Seriously, can we have a conversation? Or is it just fighting or fucking with you?”

She stopped.

“I was trying to make amends,” she said. “I thought after we saved each other…”

She drifted off and started to walk away again.

“I’m not your enemy,” Quinn said. “I’m happy you’re here. But I don’t want to have that kind of relationship with you, okay?”

“Don’t worry,” Elyssa said. “You’re the only man to turn me down, and you’ve done so twice. I won’t ask a third time.”

“Seriously, have you ever had a relationship with a man that wasn’t sexual?” Quinn asked.

Elyssa stared at him. She was still naked and apparently unconcerned about it.

“Is it my fault if men find me beautiful?” Elyssa asked. “Well, most of them, anyway.”

“It’s not that you aren’t beautiful,” Quinn said. “It’s…

“What?” Elyssa demanded. “Kate? Why does every man that ever mattered always love someone else more?”

She stomped through the grass to find her clothes and started pulling them on, apparently more out of anger than embarrassment.

“Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned,” muttered Carol, apparently not sleeping anymore.

“Stay out of this, Madame Zora,” Elyssa said, adding a sarcastic emphasis to the name.

Quinn got up and walked over to Elyssa. She was still buttoning her shirt, but he motioned her to follow him a little farther from the group. They sat down in the grass.

“Can we talk?” Quinn asked. “I’m not trying to start a fight with you, but it doesn’t help me that you use sex like some kind of weapon.”

“Of course I use it like a weapon,” she said quietly. She was pensive for a moment. “You wouldn’t understand.”

“Try me,” Quinn said.

“Modern women think it’s all so easy,” she started, and paused. She ran her fingers through her long brown hair and pinned it up above her neck

Quinn sat quietly and waited for her to continue.

“I’m not closed off from the world. I saw what it became. But that’s not the world I was born into. I was born in 1879. My mother told me all I’d ever be good for was a nobleman’s mistress. I was too low-birth to hope for anything better. But I could live in wealth and splendor if I attached myself to the right man. That’s what she told me. So I had a plan. His name was Eustace Conroy. He wasn’t of particularly high class but his family had money and his wife was as plain as a winter’s day. I saw how he looked at me, how his eyes watched my every move. I had him wrapped around my finger. He would have given me everything. But then…”

“You met Sawyer,” Quinn finished.

“You say it like it was a small thing,” Elyssa replied. “When I met Sawyer, my entire world changed. How could I even let Eustace Conroy touch me when a man like Sawyer existed? He was so charming and intelligent. People hung on his every word. So what if Sawyer was married? I was born to seduce a man like that. So that’s what I did. How could I have known what it would lead to?”

“You mean becoming the Prince of Sanheim?” Quinn asked.

“No, that was the good part!” Elyssa replied and smiled with the memory. “I loved the power and attention. I loved the ability to turn into any animal I chose, to hunt in the darkness. I relished commanding others, to see the adoration in their eyes. It was the first time in my life that I had power, that I had choices, control. That’s not what I’m talking about. When I met Sawyer, I knew I wanted him. He wasn’t as wealthy as Conroy, and his ambitions were far less. But everything about him attracted me. When I seduced him, I thought I was in control, that I would have a devoted lover who would hang on my every visit. Instead, something far worse happened.”