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

A Soul To Steal

By Rob Blackwell

Copyright 2011 by Rob Blackwell

Cover copyright: Travis Pennington

All rights reserved

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the author. The only exception is by a reviewer, who may quote short excerpts in a review.

This work is entirely fictional. Any similarity between characters and persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental and pretty much all in your head. While Leesburg and Loudoun County, Va., are real places, I have taken liberties with the geography.

For Maia, of course

“The dominant spirit, however, that haunts this enchanted region, and seems to be commander-in-chief of all the powers of the air, is the apparition of a figure on horseback, without a head.  It is said by some to be the ghost of a Hessian trooper, whose head had been carried away by a cannon-ball, in some nameless battle during the Revolutionary War, and who is ever and anon seen by the country folk hurrying along in the gloom of night, as if on the wings of the wind.

Such is the general purport of this legendary superstition, which has furnished materials for many a wild story in that region of shadows; and the spectre is known at all the country firesides, by the name of the Headless Horseman of Sleepy Hollow.”

—Washington Irving, “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow”

“The situation is a good deal worse than we expected. Robert has barricaded himself within the castle walls and refuses to see me or Doctor Frank.

I have grave concerns for his well being. Based on discrete inquiries into his activities, it appears your son has been publicly proclaiming himself some kind of Celtic prince with mystical powers. My contacts tell me he has some kind of ‘event’ planned for the feast of Sanheim—All Hallow’s Eve.

I know you have always tolerated your son’s youthful artistic endeavors, but I worry he has gone too far. Word of his indiscretions could undermine your position if they reach London. I beg you to travel here as soon as you are well. There are some things that should best be discussed in private.”

—Letter from David Burns to Sir Richard Crowley, Oct. 16, 1873

Horace Camden, “The Prince of Sanheim.”

Chapter 1

Wed., Oct. 4, 2006

Quinn stood in the living room, a large kitchen knife clutched in his hand. It had been the first thing he thought of when he woke up, bolting from bed and heading straight for the only weapon he had in the apartment.

Just what good a knife, or any weapon, would do him was not clear. It did not even make him feel better. He just stood at the door, waiting for something to come through it.

It was a dream, of course. Just another in a long string of nightmares. But it didn’t matter. He could not shake the feeling—no, the certainty—that something was coming for him. It could arrive at any minute. Worse, it may already be here.

Quinn’s hands were sweating. The sound of his breath was so loud he held it briefly just to ensure there was no one else there. How many nights had he stood here, waiting for a demon that wouldn’t show? How much sleep had he even had?

He glanced at the clock on his wall, saw the hands creep past 5:42 a.m. He mentally calculated that he had four hours sleep even while he anxiously watched the door.

It would pass, he knew. He could not even remember how long he had been standing here. Fifteen minutes? Twenty? His heart was still racing. If he was lucky, he hadn’t screamed this time. If he had, he was certain to hear about it from Gertrude upstairs, who seemed to believe he was shouting in the middle of the night as a result of Satanism or some bizarre sexual practice. Somehow the real reason—a bad nightmare—just didn’t cut it with her.

He wondered if he could at least bring himself to sit down. That was usually the first step toward calming down. Never taking his eyes off the door, he retreated to his armchair on the back wall.

Janus had often joked that Quinn was the only guy he knew whose recliner was angled away from the television. Quinn never told him the reason why.

After another fifteen minutes, the feeling of something watching him, waiting for him, began to subside. By the time 6:15 a.m. rolled around, he could at least look away from the door for 30 seconds at a time.

By 6:40 a.m., he felt good enough to get himself a drink, pulling a Coke from the fridge, popping its top and gulping it down in giant sips.

He lay down on the sofa and thought briefly of picking up the remote. But he worried. What if he turned on the TV and his dream was on it? It had happened before.

He should be used to this, he thought. His nightmares began when he was a kid—but back then there was at least some feeling of relief when he woke up.

Lately, Quinn had not felt that way. Instead, his dreams had taken on a tangible feel. The sound of a horse chasing him, the smell of the pine forest as he ran through it, even the feel of his feet slipping in the clay as he ran down a hill. In contrast, waking life felt vague and indistinct, as if it were the dream and not the other way around.

Quinn heard a thump at the door.

He was out of his chair in an instant, the knife back in his hand. The Coke in his lap had spilled to the ground, now seeping out its remaining brownish liquid onto the white carpet.

He waited for the thing to come through the door. After what felt like an eternity he realized the noise had not been caused by any monster. It had just been the delivery kid dropping off newspapers near his front door. Quinn’s body sagged in relief.

He sighed and went back to the kitchen, putting the knife on the counter and picking up some paper towels to soak up the spilled soda.

He waited another ten minutes before going to the front door, opening it quickly and pulling the two papers inside. The first was the
Washington Post
, a must for anybody living in the suburbs of the District of Columbia. He dropped it on the ground as he sat back down.

Instead, he turned his attention to the
Loudoun Chronicle
. The lead story had a headline, “Loudoun Board rejects new subdivision.” Another talked about a push to protect the site of a Civil War skirmish off Route 15. There was a giant photo of a football player catching a ball underneath a headline that read “Potomac Falls claims victory over Broad Run.”

At the bottom of the page was a smaller headline that said “Phillips Farm Debate Started.”

“Jesus, that will get their attention,” Quinn said sarcastically to the wall. The wall had never answered him, but Quinn had begun to worry in his present state it might. Then he knew he’d be in real trouble.

He sighed. The tiny by-line—By Quinn O’Brion—would undoubtedly go unnoticed by most who bothered to read the story. But it hurt just a little to know he had worked two days on a story only to see the headline turn into a bright neon sign warning people not to read any further.

“Phillips Farm Debate Started,” he said. “Why don’t they just say: ‘Boring White People Fight More,’ or ‘Trouble Sleeping? Read Further for Cure.’”

Quinn didn’t read any further.

It was hard not to be frustrated working for a paper that seemed to publish the same stuff every week, poring over the most minute details of life in Loudoun County, Virginia. Year to year, you talked to the same people, wrote many of the same stories. And even when you had a good story—and the Phillips Farm debate mattered, he believed—it probably wouldn’t register.

He dropped the
Chronicle
on the ground and picked up the
Post
. He leafed through it to find the “Loudoun Extra”—a 15-page insert that attempted to replicate a local paper. The
Post
had been on a kick lately. Seeing increasing numbers of readers turn to the Internet for news—which was free—the paper had begun local inserts in several regions.

The end result was that fewer residents felt the need to subscribe to papers like the
Chronicle
. It did not matter that the
Chronicle
’s staff had worked here longer or knew people better. People didn’t want to subscribe to two papers anymore.

He glanced at the Extra’s headlines and groaned. “Gibson set to unveil new Phillips plan.”

“Shit,” Quinn said.

He read the story quickly. Sure enough, Paul Gibson, the chairman of Loudoun’s board of directors, had begun circulating a plan that would give a developer two-thirds of the old farmstead, but protect the rest under a conservation easement.

All his work, Quinn thought, and his story was already outdated. There was seldom anything worse than waking up and discovering you had been scooped. How had it happened? He had talked to everybody, including Gibson. And no one had breathed a word about any new plan. Damn.

He did not even need to look at the by-line. He knew Summer had beaten him and she would find some way to bring it up the next time they met.

Quinn dropped the paper in disgust and got up. He stumbled down the hall to the bathroom. He stopped when he passed the mirror above the sink. In the reflection was a 30-year-old of average height and regular build—he was thin enough, but not in great shape. He put his hand through his brown hair. Were those gray hairs? Maybe it was the nightmares. Was he good looking? He didn’t know. There seemed little exceptional about him.

Except…his eyes. He stared back at himself with electric blue eyes. An old girlfriend had once told him his eyes were the only reason she had agreed to go out with him. She had been on the verge of saying no when she looked him in the eyes. And then she changed her mind.

Quinn smiled, but the expression held little humor in it. If his eyes had ever been arresting, he doubted anyone would notice now. His skin looked gray and pallid, as if he hid himself from the sun. And his eyes were surrounded by dark circles, the sign of a man who does not sleep well.

Jesus, he thought, I look…
haunted
.

He turned on the water and washed his face, as if to brush the look away. But the only change that occurred was his reflection now looked wet.

Screw it, he thought. It didn’t matter.

But just as he turned and reached for the shower faucets, he paused and listened intently. 

Quinn grabbed the side of the shower door to steady himself. That couldn’t be right, could it? He walked into the hallway slowly and then to his window to look outside. His apartment faced the back, looking over a brief sparse of woods before another cluster of apartment buildings.

He opened his window. Over the sounds of traffic winding its way through Leesburg and beyond the call of birds, it was the sound of a horse running. The sound caused his stomach to seize up and he struggled not to be sick. It sounded close.

Quinn tried to dismiss it out of hand. Horses in Loudoun were hardly unusual, he thought. It meant nothing. But how could he hear these things? Most people wouldn’t hear the sounds of a horse if one were twenty feet away, much less through a bathroom wall—not to mention an apartment.

Quinn shut the window.  He didn’t want to think about it. Didn’t want to remember it. It was nothing but a horse lover out for a ride and there was no sense in making it into some kind of demon. He had enough real demons to worry him, didn’t he?

He sighed as he stripped and turned on the shower. Mentally, he ticked off the things that had already gone wrong with his day: He got four hours sleep, began his morning threatening a door with a kitchen knife and was scooped by Summer Mandaville,
Post
reporter and pain-in-the-butt.

The only benefit to starting the day in such a lousy manner was that at least things weren’t likely to get any worse.

But he was wrong about that, too.