Give the Devil His Due (The Sanheim Chronicles, Book Three) (28 page)

There was a large open cavern area with a small fire burning in the center. Both Janus and Elyssa lay by the fire, immobile. Quinn couldn’t see their faces, so he didn’t know if they were all right. He forced himself not to run in, but looked around instead. He thought he could see that they were still breathing.

Quinn peered into the cavern to determine where their captors might be. But aside from a few shadows on the wall, there was nothing there. Nor could he see the spider anywhere either. Maybe it had chased them off? Or was it a trap? Standing there, Quinn felt like an idiot. There was nothing in the room. It might be a trap, but right now, it looked like the coast was clear. Perhaps the spider really had distracted them.

He didn’t dare call to them since he couldn’t risk making any unnecessary noise. Instead, he crept forward as slowly as possible.

As he entered the cavern, he could see another exit on the other side. If he got blocked from going back how he had entered, he could head that way, though who knew where it went. He slowly walked into the center of the cavern toward Janus, watching carefully for any movement. But he saw nothing.

When he got to Janus, he gently turned him over so he could see his face. There was no ice on him, but Janus looked frozen solid, his hands held stiffly at his side. His eyes were wide open — and moving. As soon as Janus saw Quinn, his eyes looked around the room frantically.

Quinn didn’t speak, but gave him the thumbs up signal. He reached down to pick him up.

That was when the shadows on the wall started to move. Quinn assumed they were coming from him or Janus, but quickly realized they bore no resemblance to either. Instead, the shadows seemed to peel themselves off the wall itself. Quinn watched as two black shapes stood on either side of him, each blocking an exit.

“Welcome, Dullahan,” a voice said, and the shadowman on the left stretched its mouth wide in an apparent smile. Quinn found himself staring at the shadowy mass of its body. “Lord Sanheim sends his greeting. He says you should have taken his offer.”

“I don’t suppose he’d like to make it again?” Quinn asked, just trying to stall for time. He looked around for something — anything — that could help him.

The other shadow shook its head and laughed.

“Lord Sanheim has a new request now,” it said. “One that he found amusing and ironic.”

“I bet I won’t,” Quinn said.

The shadowman laughed again.

“He wants us to bring him your head.”

The two of them started to close in.

Chapter 23

Kate should have been exhausted. She hadn’t slept in several days and had forgotten to eat. Yet she was strangely invigorated. The spirits around her had swelled in ranks since she finally tamed them in Manassas.

She had visited a new area every night, including a northern trek to Gettysburg in Pennsylvania, the most famous battle of the war, and Antietam in Maryland, the site of the single bloodiest day of fighting. The sadness of those two places was almost too much for her to bear.

After Antietam, she lost track of the numbers following her. She was surprised how many ghosts still lingered in those places, but perhaps she shouldn’t have been. The war had defined a generation and a nation. It shouldn’t be surprising that those who fought, including the survivors, would still be haunted by it.

After learning from her experience in Manassas, Kate no longer called the spirits forth and left the situation to chance. Instead, she found another way to deal with the problem.

She looked out at her new location, the battlefield of Chancellorsville. The moon was so bright it illuminated the rolling plain in front of her, as well as the cannons that marked infantry locations and the statues and memorials. She knew the number of dead here would also be high. After Antietam, Chancellorsville had been the site of the second bloodiest day of fighting. Like Manassas, it had also seen more than one battle, encompassing five different fights that had happened near here.

The most famous was one of the most stunning victories the Confederates ever had. Outnumbered roughly three-to-two, General Robert E. Lee employed a desperate and unusual strategy, dividing his army and sending most of his men for a flank attack on the Union. By all rights, the gamble shouldn’t have worked. It was considered suicide to divide one’s forces, potentially allowing the enemy to crush half of one’s army with its superior numbers.

But whether due to luck, the brilliance of “Stonewall” Jackson, who led the flank assault, or the ineptness of the Union commanders, who were warned of a possible surprise attack but took no precautions against it, the strategy worked. Jackson’s unit obliterated the Union forces it surprised and the Confederates won the battle.

Not that it was precisely the victory they had envisioned. Jackson was killed by his own troops, who mistook him for the enemy. And Lee walked away convinced that his army was unbeatable and could accomplish whatever he asked of it. It was that mindset that helped lead to his overconfidence at Gettysburg, including the disastrous Pickett’s Charge.

Kate shook her head. It was handy to have Quinn’s near encyclopedic knowledge of the battles in this area — he’d visited each a number of times — but it was also distracting. In the end, what mattered wasn’t who had won, but what had been lost.

On this field, like the others she had visited over the past week, Kate felt the same pulsing wound beneath the earth, the lives lost or shattered.

It was nearly time. She gathered her mental focus and summoned Hatcher to her side once more. The spirit instantly responded.

“Hatcher, reporting for duty, Ma’am,” he said.

The woman in white smiled at him.

“We’ll try the same thing as before, Private,” she said. “I want you to organize them appropriately and spread them out. When I give the word, we’ll call the rest.”

“Yes, Ma’am,” he responded crisply.

Kate closed her eyes and focused her energy outward. But this time, she didn’t call the spirits of the dead soldiers. Her call was aimed elsewhere. When she tried this at Gettysburg, she had been worried it wouldn’t work, that she wasn’t strong enough to narrow her reach. Even now, she was nervous. But by using the energy of the spirits already on her side, she had found the strength to do this before. She would have to do so again.

“
Come to me,”
she called. She filled her head with images, but not of war. Instead, they were images of sons marching off, of sweethearts who never came home again, of farms and towns sunk into poverty.

The response wasn’t immediate, the way it was with the soldiers. Kate supposed that was because the soldiers were still on this field. But for the women and children they left behind, her summons had to go much farther.

Still, it was no more than a few minutes before they came. Old women in mourning dress, young women looking exhausted and scared. Their sons, husbands and boyfriends had died here, and these women’s lives had been wrenched apart as a result. Though they numbered far fewer than the soldiers, there were enough to make Kate weep.

There was one other critical difference. Unlike the soldiers she had summoned, these women had no wish to re-fight old battles. All they wanted was for their suffering to end.

“
You don’t have to be trapped here anymore,”
Kate told them. “
I will call your loved ones. You must help them understand that the war is over. The need to stay here has passed. It’s time we marched for a new purpose, a united cause.
”

Kate saw many of them nodding. How many years had they been trapped here? How long have they waited?

She saw Clinton Hatcher moving among them, telling them softly to go to this or that part of the battlefield. He was her secret weapon. Hatcher towered over his peers and was a Virginia gentleman to his core. He quietly dispatched the women to where they were needed.

Kate nodded at him. It was time.

Closing her eyes, the banshee once again put out the call. She was careful not to mentally project the sights or sounds of the battle, instead focusing on its aftermath.

“
You don’t have to be trapped here anymore
,” she repeated. “
Let go of your past.
Come to me and be free.”

They responded within seconds, even more than she anticipated. There were hundreds and then thousands. She watched as some embraced the women near them. As it had before, her tactic worked. With the women there and the cost of the war so apparent, the men didn’t take up arms again. Instead, some nodded across the lines of blue and gray, a final understanding reached between them.

But Kate was also conscious of something new. It wasn’t just soldiers coming, or even those from the Civil War era. She saw men in 1930s business suits, women in 1960s clothing. Her call was becoming more powerful and attracting even more spirits. What mattered wasn’t when they died, but that they had remained.

Kate started to feel a sense of success. Soon she wouldn’t need to travel to battlefields anymore, the spirits would come to her. After that, they would march. Everything was coming together. Kate wondered if anything could stop her army.

In that moment, when Kate could already see the victory in her head, the attack came.

*****

A sudden bolt of green energy burst into the midst of her new makeshift army. Kate watched as soldiers and female ghosts were blasted into the air.

“What the hell?” she said in surprise.

Another explosion of green light fell on the other side of the battlefield, scattering more spirits. Then another and another.

“Artillery!” some of the men shouted.

She watched as the men began to form battle lines, pushing the women and other civilians behind them. However, this time they weren’t lining up to fight each other, but an unknown enemy.

Kate, in the form of the banshee, stared across the sky where the shots had come from, but couldn’t see anything. All she saw was the moonlit sky.

Another explosion landed nearby. It didn’t just harm spirits, but left a small crater in the dirt. A shot landed right near her feet, but Kate stood her ground.

“Ready weapons!” she shouted. Soldiers started loading their guns.

Hatcher was at her side as another green blast hit nearby. She heard men screaming.

“What are your orders?”

“For right now, I want the troops in defensive positions,” she said. “Get the civilians as safe as they can be and wait until we see what the hell is attacking us.”

“Ma’am,” Hatcher nodded and disappeared.

The night was well-lit by the moon, but Kate couldn’t see what was assaulting them. More blasts hit nearby but she ignored them, focusing only on where they were coming from.

Finally, she spotted a flash of gold at the far end of the battlefield. Before it could move, she pointed to that area and screamed, “Fire!”

A thousand shots split the night air.

“Reload!” Hatcher shouted.

Kate couldn’t see anything, but the night was suddenly quiet. She waited for the next attack, but it didn’t come.

“Hold position,” Hatcher said.

In life, Clinton Hatcher had been a flag bearer, but in death he was turning into an excellent lieutenant.

Kate was just starting to become convinced that they must have hit their assailant when the next green blast came. Unlike the others, these were aimed directly at her. She dodged the first and rolled away from the second as it exploded nearby. When the third one came, though, it was too quick. Despite being an incorporeal banshee, the shot didn’t pass right through her. Instead, it hit her full-on, sending her flying into the air.

Kate flew back and bumped into a line of soldiers. For a moment, she lay on the ground, stunned. Whatever was attacking her was incredibly powerful, much stronger than Aillen. She pulled herself up with the aid of a nearby soldier, only to encounter another attack.

She dodged it and rolled out of the way. Several blasts hit nearby, but didn’t catch her. She was at least able to see where the shots came from. She also noticed a pattern. The attacks always came in threes before a break.

Kate pointed to where she had last seen a blast originate.

“Fire!” she screamed.

Smoke filled the air as thousands of shots rang out, and then silence.

Kate didn’t let herself believe for a moment that the attacks had stopped for good, but she watched and waited.

After a minute, another three blasts came at her, one after the other. Like before, she evaded the first two, but the third one caught her. Kate was knocked backward again, but was up almost as soon as she landed.

She pointed and shouted “fire” again.

Another round of gunshots rang out, but Kate decided to try another tactic. She opened her mouth and screamed.

She had used the banshee’s scream only once before in a desperate move to stop Sawyer from killing Quinn. It was powerful, but also took enormous energy. It had another drawback as well. When she screamed, she couldn’t do anything else, including move. Additionally, for it to be lethal, she had to be close to her opponent. The nearer she was, the more effective the scream would be.