Give the Devil His Due (The Sanheim Chronicles, Book Three) (44 page)

On screen, Kieran got up and walked backwards until he was standing next to Carol. The two were talking to each other.

“Over the years, I’ve changed my mind about the actor who should play me,” Kieran said. “A long time ago, it was Burt Reynolds, can you believe that? Then for a while it was Patrick Swayze or Tom Cruise. More recently it was Ewan McGregor. I loved the idea of someone playing Obi-Wan Kenobi and me. But this is better. I’ve always secretly wanted to play myself.”

The movie picked up speed, now showing Kieran being held by Elyssa while Kate threatened him. Quinn took his eyes off the screen and looked around the theater. They were sitting in plush seats, but the floor was a little sticky. Quinn could see that the black velvet curtains were a bit frayed and shabby.

“What is this place?” he asked.

Kieran never took his eyes off the screen.

“It’s the Queen’s Theatre in Chichester,” he responded, casually throwing a piece of popcorn into his mouth. “I came here every Saturday when I was a kid. My dad — well, let’s just say he didn’t have much interest in me. So every Saturday, he’d give me money for the cinema. I loved it. I used to stay all day if I could manage to hide from the ushers.”

On screen, Quinn saw bullets flying away from a woman in gold back into the guns of some Civil War soldiers. Kieran clearly yelled “Fire.”

“You helped her,” Quinn said.

Kieran chucked more popcorn in his mouth.

“Needs more butter,” he said. “Actually, we were a pretty good team. Ironic, isn’t it? Or maybe it isn’t. I was used to playing this role. I helped Sawyer and Elyssa and before that, I helped Grace. I’m good at being a sidekick.”

Quinn felt the warm sensation in his hand spread to his arm, as if he had a heating pack on his wrist. He looked at Kieran, but he didn’t appear to be any different or registering any discomfort.

The movie on screen picked up speed again and was almost a blur of images. Kieran appeared on his knees in a jail cell, the Headless Horseman standing over him.

“So this is a horror movie?” Quinn asked, smiling. He hadn’t known until now that Kate had turned into the Horseman after he died. The idea amused him.

“I prefer to think of it as an urban fantasy-action-adventure, with me as the conflicted protagonist.”

The warmth in Quinn’s arm spread to his chest. He felt strangely hot, almost like he should take off his shirt.

“Is it cold in here?” Kieran asked.

He rubbed at his right arm and chest.

“I need to talk to the management,” Kieran said. “I don’t remember ever being too hot or too cold in here. I only remember being happy. I tried to take Grace here once, years later. But they had torn it down, the bastards. I actually cried, can you believe that? You never really appreciate something until it’s gone.”

Quinn watched as the Kieran on screen paged through books, appearing to flip through them backwards.

“Your research,” Quinn said.

“I became obsessed with it,” Kieran said. “It was as if in saving you, I might be able to undo all the damage I’ve ever done. You know, Crowley wrote all this shit about how you are what you fear. But it’s not really true, is it? All that matters are the choices we make.”

“I was thinking about that earlier,” Quinn said. “I tried to convince Elyssa of that.”

Kieran looked over at him and smiled.

“Yeah, that’s a tough sell,” he said. “That woman has been taking orders for so long she doesn’t even think she has a choice anymore. She just wants someone to follow.”

On screen, Kieran wandered, backwards, through the ruins of different castles, then roamed the Irish countryside. Quinn was amused to watch him bike backwards as well.

“At first, I didn’t like that this was in reverse,” Kieran said. “But now I think it’s inspired. It’s very Avant-guard, don’t you think?”

The movie-Kieran was drinking in a pub and talking intently to a stout man.

“That’s him!” Kieran said. “That’s the guy I told you about, the one who told me about
ail-enedigaeth
.”

The moment was so brief it was gone before Quinn got a good look at the stranger.

He then watched as Kieran traveled through much of Ireland in reverse.

“What’s funny is that it’s skipping bits,” Kieran said. “It never showed us when I visited Kate in the asylum.”

“Every good movie has to have an editor,” Quinn replied.

“Yeah, but that was a memorable part,” he said.

The movie sped up significantly.

Quinn watched in fascination as some of the last events of his own mortal life replayed in reverse. It started with his death, as he watched Kieran stab him in the back. However, in this version, Quinn saw the knife in his chest and Kieran pulled it out of him. It looked like Kieran was saving Quinn, not killing him.

If Kieran was bothered by watching this scene, he didn’t show it.

“You had a great death scene, by the way,” Kieran commented a moment later. “I’ve always wanted one of those. Like in Star Trek II, when Spock dies. Man, I just about cried my eyes out during that one. ‘I have been, and always shall be, your friend.’ And then Scotty on the bagpipes. That was brilliant.”

“Obviously the best Star Trek movie,” Quinn replied.

“Oh, here comes the sex scene,” Kieran said.

Quinn looked up to see Kieran and Elyssa writhing around on the floor.

“Weird, even in reverse, it pretty much looks the same,” Kieran said.

The scene backed up until Kieran and Elyssa drew apart, with Elyssa putting her clothes back on and backing away.

“Were you friends with her?” Quinn asked.

“Can you be friends with her?” Kieran replied. “I don’t know. She tried to seduce me plenty of times. I thought it was a game to her, but I’m not really sure anymore. I hated her after Grace died, but I’m not even sure she knew what Sawyer was going to do. In retrospect, I think she was just as lost as I was. Maybe I should have tried to be open with her. Maybe things could’ve been different.”

They were silent for a few minutes as Quinn watched Kate and him appear briefly in a scene at the castle with Sawyer, Elyssa and Kieran. A little later, the film showed Kieran killing Carol. As with Quinn’s murder, though, this time he appeared to be helping her, drawing his knife along her throat and closing the wound.

“Would you tell her I’m sorry about that?” Kieran asked. “She loved me once upon a time and I… well, I didn’t appreciate her. There we are with that theme again.”

“What do you mean?” Quinn asked. “You can tell her yourself.”

Kieran tore himself away from the screen and gave Quinn a sad look.

“I think we both know how this movie ends,” Kieran said.

“What do you mean?” Quinn asked again.

Kieran didn’t reply. He looked again at the screen. Quinn watched the details of Kieran’s life spill out in front of him. The warmth in his chest had expanded, spreading down to his legs. Beside him, Kieran was rubbing his arms. He had started a few minutes earlier, clearly trying to warm himself. Quinn looked at Kieran’s lips and noticed they had turned blue.

His attention, though, kept being pulled back to the movie, where he watched in fascination and horror at the double life that Kieran led. On screen there were countless interactions with Elyssa and Sawyer and their
moidin
. Sometimes Kieran looked rude or surly, at other times he laughed and joked with the pair of them. On several occasions, Kieran played chess with Sawyer.

But more often Quinn saw Kieran alone at the movies or sitting in some far corner of whatever estate they lived in reading a book. He moved among people, but he didn’t seem to be a part of them.

Finally, the movie came to the part for which Quinn had been waiting. He saw a brief scene where Sanheim appeared and talked to Kieran. On screen, Kieran was angry and shouting, but Quinn couldn’t understand what was said.

“That’s when we made the deal,” Kieran said, and his voice came out stuttering.

Quinn looked over to see Kieran’s face was quite blue. He could barely turn his head.

“I wish I could be there when you beat him,” Kieran said. “You’ll let him know I helped, won’t you? I want that son of a bitch to know I helped destroy him. He could have struck a fair deal with me. But he lied and cheated, like he always has. But what you do in life echoes in eternity. That’s from
Gladiator
. And I believe it. Some day very soon his lies will catch up with him.”

“This isn’t a trade, is it?” Quinn asked. “You’re really dying.”

Kieran nodded his head with apparent difficulty.

“Did you really think it was that easy?” he asked. “That we could just change places? No, everything in life has a cost, and this is mine. I don’t get to hang out in Sanheimville or wherever that was. This is where my movie ends.”

“You should have told us,” Quinn said.

“Would it have made a difference?” he asked and tried to smile, but failed. “There’s no one to mourn me there.”

“You did this all for revenge against Sanheim?”

“Partly,” Kieran said. “But I admit I had another motive as well.”

The movie played faster now, and Quinn saw that on screen, Kieran was sobbing in a corner, obviously still mourning Grace’s death. In a flash, the movie sped backwards, and he saw Grace make her first appearance. She was fighting with Kieran, but it did nothing to diminish her beauty. She moved with the elegance of a dancer.

“Her name suits her,” Quinn said.

The movie had already backed up to a happier time, a scene where Kieran and Grace were kissing. When Quinn looked over at Kieran, the tears had frozen on his cheeks. Quinn looked down to see a thin layer of ice on Kieran’s hand and wrist, slowly spreading up his arm.

“Do you think she’s out there somewhere?” Kieran asked, though speaking seemed like an enormous effort. On screen, Grace rushed back from Kieran’s arms. They looked insanely happy, the way Quinn imagined he did when he held Kate. “Do you think I can find her, wherever she went? I know she’s too good for me, but all I want… is… to… see… her… again.”

Kieran stopped talking then, his lips and face slowly freezing over. Only his eyes were still moving, staring at the screen.

The movie showed Kieran and Grace as kids, talking along the side of a riverbank. Quinn wasn’t sure, but it looked like the moment the two first met. The young Kieran started walking away backwards. In a second, Kieran would no longer be able to see Grace.

Quinn watched the moment that Kieran first laid eyes on Grace. He had just come into view and Grace gave him a winsome smile, as if she had been waiting all her life for him to show up.

At that moment, the movie faded to black. Quinn had assumed it would keep going backwards until Kieran’s birth. But he supposed that, in a way, the moment he met Grace was when his life truly started.

He looked over at Kieran, who was now entirely encased in a thin layer of ice. Even his eyes seemed frozen now. When Quinn looked closely, there was no life left in them. Kieran was dead.

*****

Quinn opened his eyes and stared at the purple sky above him.

He looked next to him and saw Kieran’s dead eyes staring at the sky. He reached over and drew the knife out of their hands.

“He’s dead,” Elyssa said, looking at Kieran. “He didn’t come back after all.”

Quinn thought he heard satisfaction in her voice.

“Did it work?” Kate asked.

Quinn didn’t respond. Instead, he rolled over and knelt beside Kieran’s body.

“I hope you find her,” he said, and he gently shut Kieran’s eyes. “I hope you find Grace.”

“So it wasn’t a lie?” Elyssa asked.

“He lied all right,” Quinn said, still looking at Kieran. “His motive wasn’t revenge; it was redemption.”

Quinn stood up and turned to the others. The warmth that had spread through his body in the theater was still there, burning within him.

“Holy shit, mate, you’re glowing,” Janus said in a whisper.

He looked at Kate, who smiled at him.

“Did it work?” she asked again.

Quinn nodded and smiled back. He hadn’t been aware of it, but all his senses had been dull and faded before. Now they felt crisp. Standing several feet away, he could hear Kate’s soft breathing. He looked around the small group of them, studying each face. They looked different somehow, simultaneously more distinct and yet also a bit faded.

That’s because they’re dead
, he realized.

He looked at Kate again and she was practically shining. Not in a poetic way, but literally radiating heat and light. She looked…

“You’re gorgeous,” he said.

Kate couldn’t contain herself any longer, but came running to him, throwing herself into his arms.

Quinn didn’t know if he looked different, but he felt like a new man. He could feel the blood pulsing in his veins, his heart racing as Kate kissed him. When she first kissed him after she came through the portal, he thought that was the best kiss of his existence. But this one beat them all.