Give the Devil His Due (The Sanheim Chronicles, Book Three) (9 page)

Quinn felt like he was watching the whole scene play out in slow motion. Logically, he knew Elyssa was already doomed, but some part of him insisted that couldn’t be the case. There had to be some way to save her.

The situation triggered an old memory of him standing in his karate class trying to earn his white belt. The test was simple; all he had to do was punch and break a thin, wooden board. But try as he might, he couldn’t do it, jabbing uselessly at the board and bruising his knuckles in the process.

The instructor had finally sent for Master Chuang, the karate studio’s owner. He was an intimidating presence, a broad shouldered man in a green uniform who never – so far as Quinn had seen – cracked a smile.

Master Chuang wordlessly took the place of Quinn’s instructor and stared straight into Quinn’s eyes.

“You do not believe you can do this,” Master Chuang said.

“No, sir,” Quinn said.

“You cannot do something you know is impossible,” Master Chuang said. “You have to choose what to believe. You either believe you can break this board or that you cannot break this board. Which do you choose?”

Quinn didn’t know what the right answer was. It didn’t matter what he chose, he knew he couldn’t break the board. Believing something else wouldn’t change that.

“You are wrong,” Master Chuang responded, as if reading his thoughts. “What you believe is everything.”

Master Chuang pointed at Quinn’s heart.

“You must believe it here,” he said. “You must choose what you believe and believe it with all your soul.”

Quinn hadn’t fully understood what he was told; however, he had absorbed enough of the lesson. When Master Chuang presented the board to him again, Quinn quieted his doubts. Something clicked into place for him, a strange certainty that erased his remaining fears. Master Chuang counted off and when he punched the board, the wood didn’t just break — it shattered.

The memory flashed through his mind in the fraction of a second that he watched the scarecrow raise his arm. Quinn stopped wondering if he could get there in time and instead simply looked for a way to stop the scarecrow.

He saw the rock out of the corner of his eye. It was large and round, shaped more like a baseball than an actual stone. He didn’t question how it got there precisely when he needed it. Nor did he worry about the fact that he had never been particularly adept at throwing. Instead, a voice whispered in his head, “You must choose what you believe and believe it with all your soul.”

Without slowing his sprint, he scooped up the rock on the ground and threw it squarely at the scarecrow’s pumpkin head. Quinn had moved so fast that the figure was still fully extending his arm. The scarecrow was lining up his shot with a practiced ease that signaled he had previously missed Elyssa on purpose, just waiting for Quinn and Janus to arrive.

But while the scarecrow moved with cocky indifference, Quinn’s rock seemed to move at triple speed, sailing through the air with rapid grace. Just as the scarecrow was about to pull the trigger, the stone hit him in the back of his head.

Quinn wasn’t sure what he expected and had given no thought to it. Instead of hitting the scarecrow’s pumpkin head and bouncing off, the rock went straight through it, triggering a geyser of pumpkin juice and seeds. The back of his head caved in.

The scarecrow immediately dropped the crossbow and turned toward Quinn and Janus, his carved face contorted in agony. He lifted his hands to the back of his head as if to hold it together. Instead, he let out a strangled cry and fell to the ground. The rest of his head smashed against the pavement, leaving a headless scarecrow on the ground. Janus prodded the creature with his foot, and straw fell from his clothes. The scarecrow was dead.

Quinn ran straight to Elyssa, who was tied up against the back wall and still seemed in shock, staring at the mangled scarecrow. Quinn loosened the ropes restraining her and caught her as she fell forward. Grabbing her around the waist, he helped move her out of the booth as she kept muttering. Janus came forward on the other side and helped.

“You’re okay,” Janus said. “You’re safe now.”

Elyssa stopped talking and looked at Janus. She seemed to realize for the first time that she was no longer suspended as target practice.

“Where am I?” she asked him, her blue eyes still wild.

“Halloweenland,” Janus replied. “Whatever the hell that is.”

“It’s hell, Elyssa,” Quinn said. “We’re…”

At the sound of his voice, Elyssa’s head jerked around to face Quinn. When she saw him, she let out a scream and began pushing frantically away from them. When Quinn tried to stop her, she scratched at him and he let her go. Elyssa fell to the ground and started scrambling backwards without taking her eyes off Quinn.

“Get away from me!” Elyssa said.

“You know her name?” Janus said.

“Janus, this is Elyssa, one half of the other Prince of Sanheim I was talking about,” he said.

“Why is she acting like you’re Freddy Krueger? Look at her, she’s terrified, mate,” Janus said.

“Because,” Quinn said, “I killed her.”

“Oh,” Janus said. “That’s a pretty good reason.”

Elyssa was still backing up, looking back and forth between Janus and Quinn.

“Elyssa, we need to talk,” Quinn said.

“Stay away from me,” she said. “He told me you would come, that you’d be back to finish the job.”

“I don’t know who you’re talking about,” Quinn replied, “but I don’t want to hurt you. I just saved you, remember?”

“It’s a trick,” she said, her eyes darting. “He said you were coming with your sword. He showed me in my dreams.”

Quinn held up his hands to show her they were empty.

“He was lying, Elyssa,” Quinn said. “I didn’t even know you were here.”

“Was there a particular reason you killed her?” Janus asked. “Cause she’s really hot.”

Quinn turned to him with an exasperated look.

“You would be okay with it if she weren’t attractive?”

“No, but look at her. She’s supermodel hot.”

“If it helps, she was trying to kill me at the time,” he said. “Well, technically, at that exact moment, she was trying to kill Kieran.”

“Who’s Kieran?”

“The guy who ended up killing me.”

Janus scratched his head and looked confused.

“Could you write this down for me? It’s getting hard to follow.”

“Kieran killed you?” Elyssa asked.

She had stopped backing away, but still lay on the ground watching them warily.

“I killed you, Kate killed Sawyer, and then Kieran stabbed me in the back,” Quinn said.

“Why?” Elyssa asked, her tone echoing with disbelief.

“I’m not sure, but it seemed to be Sanheim’s orders,” Quinn replied. “I didn’t have much time to ask him about it.”

“But if you’re dead…”

“We’re in hell, Elyssa,” Quinn said. “I was trying to…”

Their conversation was interrupted by the strange music starting up again over the loudspeaker. Quinn watched as the flock of crows suddenly descended on the body of the scarecrow. For a moment, all he could see was a mass of black feathers obscuring the body. Then they flew away again, leaving nothing — not so much as one straw — behind.

“Halloweenland would like to extend a hearty congratulations to our recent winners at Crossbow Junction,” the voice on the loudspeaker said.

“That’s him,” Elyssa said, her voice sounding near panic again. “That’s the man who was telling me about you.”

“Interesting,” Quinn said. “I’m not sure who he is, but he’s the puppeteer here, Elyssa. I wouldn’t trust a thing he says.”

“Sanheim,” she said. “It has to be.”

“No,” both Janus and Quinn said at the same time. Quinn raised his eyebrow at Janus.

“I’ve talked with him a fair bit over the past several weeks,” Janus said. “He’s the one that sent me to find you, remember? Whoever this is might work for Sanheim, but it’s not the same person. I’m sure of it.”

“We can talk about it later,” Quinn said. “For now…”

“As a token of our appreciation, we’d like to invite our winners to our original haunted house,” the loudspeaker voice continued. “We call it the Haunted Mansion.”

“There’s an original name,” Janus said. “Did you hire Eddie Murphy and make it into a terrible movie too?”

“More than 10,000 people visited on a single Halloween night in 1988,” the voice continued. “It was our most popular attraction. The kids loved it.”

“I don’t like the sound of this,” Janus interjected.

“But sadly, there was an accident,” the voice continued, sounding more cheerful than sad. “In our haste, we let too many people in at the same time and, well, one of our employees ‘accidentally’ locked the exits.”

“This sounds familiar,” Quinn said. “I heard about this when I was a kid. He’s talking about something that actually happened.”

“Somehow,” the voice continued, “a fire broke out. My, my, you should have heard those poor screaming kiddies.”

“How could 10,000 people die and I not know this story?” Janus asked.

“It wasn’t that many,” Quinn responded. “It was more like fifty. I don’t remember much about it, but it caused all sorts of outrage at the time. There were new regulations put in place, that kind of thing. The park was a Mom and Pop operation; I don’t think it survived.”

“It was quite a night, I assure you,” the voice continued. “Like shooting fish in a barrel.”

“There’s something else,” Quinn said. “I knew someone who said they were there, but I can’t remember who it was.”

“Quinn, look!” Janus said and pointed further down the park where a fog had rolled in. It looked like a thick, white, misty wall. Just in front of the fog, they could see a high chain-link fence erected across the middle of the path. Everything was completely blocked except for a large house on the left side of the pathway. Next to it was a sign that read, “Haunted Mansion.” The front door was wide open.

“No way we’re going in there,” Janus said.

But Quinn turned to look behind them.

“Uh, Janus? You might want to look this way.”

Behind them, rows of scarecrows were headed their direction. Dressed in different flannel shirts and occasionally leaking straw on the path, there were dozens — maybe hundreds — coming towards them. They carried various weapons, including machetes, axes and pitchforks. Their pumpkin faces were carved in fury.

“I can’t wait to see how you like the place,” the loudspeaker voice said. “I can’t wait to see if you survive.”

The scarecrows started running.

“Why are scary things always fucking chasing us?” Janus asked.

Elyssa seemed rooted to the ground, staring up at the mob heading toward her.

“Get up, Elyssa!” Quinn shouted. “We gotta go. Now.”

Elyssa looked at him.

“It’s a trick,” she said. “You’re behind this.”

Quinn ran up to her and grabbed her arm.

“It’s not,” he said. “I swear on my love for Kate.”

Whether it was the scarecrows rushing toward them or the expression he used, Elyssa stood up. All three of them began running towards the haunted house. As they got closer, Quinn noticed that the door was starting to close.

The crowd behind them began shouting angrily as the three of them got closer to the house. Quinn heard curses and yells, and saw objects landing in the street nearby as the mob hurled items at them. Quinn reached the doorway first and held it open for Elyssa and Janus as they darted inside.

As Quinn closed the door, he saw the mob of angry pumpkin faces howling at him. Except for one. For just a second, one scarecrow on the far right seemed to smile and wink at him.

Before he could process what he saw, the door suddenly slammed shut.

“Welcome,” the voice from the loudspeaker said as Quinn, Janus and Elyssa stared at the garish room in front of them. The voice sounded closer and more intimate now. “Welcome to your doom.”

Chapter 8

Of the many voices in her head, it was Quinn who demanded that Kieran be spared.

That was a bitter irony to Kate. The man Kieran had killed, whose absence had sparked this waking nightmare, was the very same who denied her revenge. And not just her, either.

Of course, Kyle was out for blood, and even the Horseman agreed the time had come to decapitate Kieran. Only the banshee stayed silent on the matter, refusing to be drawn into a discussion.

Kate could not have described what was happening in her head. Quinn was dead, yet she heard his voice constantly. Kyle was dead, yet he wandered the halls of her mind whispering endlessly. The Horseman said little, but she felt his presence, quietly and persistently urging her to seek out those who deserved his swift justice. The banshee was there too, a misty figure who lurked on the edge of her consciousness, saying nothing.

Kate had trouble processing so many different presences at once. Often she envisioned them as people in a room with white walls, almost like the cell at the asylum she had once occupied.