Give the Devil His Due (The Sanheim Chronicles, Book Three) (39 page)

She opened her eyes and looked at Kieran.

“Let’s get to the cave,” she said. “I’m going to open the portal.”

Chapter 30

The shadowman towered over Quinn, a dark goliath whose roar echoed along the stone corridor. Quinn held his sword out in front of him and laughed. It was a strange laugh, one that seemed to waver between genuine mirth and absolute insanity.

“Uh, Quinn?” Janus asked behind him.

Dian lumbered forward and tried to sweep Quinn off his feet. But Quinn leapt backward out of the way. He grabbed Janus’ arm and they slowly backed up together as the monster paced toward them. Still, Quinn kept laughing.

“You’re freaking me out, mate. You have to stop,” Janus said.

“Don’t you see?” he asked. “This isn’t a fortress, it’s a prison.”

“I got that part,” Janus said.

“He set up the prison right on the portal,” Quinn said. “It’s why the fort was built in the first place. Anyone who came through stayed here. Crowley never made it 15 feet into this world before Sanheim stopped him. He imprisoned him and sent Lilith back through the portal.”

Dian charged forward. Janus turned and ran, but Quinn ducked the first blow and tried to strike back. His sword should have struck home, but it was like stabbing empty air. The blade cut into nothing.

The monster smiled and struck Quinn with the back of his hand, sending him crashing into the wall.

“No!” Janus screamed, and went diving towards him, barely escaping a blow aimed at him. He picked up Quinn off the floor, put an arm around him and the two began running up the stone hallway.

Though he had been hit, Quinn started talking again as if the conversation had never been interrupted.

“The portal opens here,” Quinn said. “It was all a set-up.”

“Why would he lead us right to where Kate is coming through?” Janus asked.

“It kills two birds with one stone,” Quinn said. “We’re just a bonus. He’s going to let the Wyrm destroy everything just as Kate arrives. If I’m right, the portal will open at the top of the fort, and the second she comes through, that Wyrm is going to collapse the whole damn hill. If the fall doesn’t kill her, a hundred tons of dirt and rock will. We’ll all die, Janus, before Kate even has a chance. Just like before. Sanheim will be rid of all his enemies in one fell swoop”

Dian roared behind them as another earthquake rocked the floor, underscoring Quinn’s point. Janus slipped and fell to the ground, taking Quinn with him. Quinn felt a giant hand pick him up and dangle him in the air. The creature turned Quinn around to face him.

“How dare you defy the Dark God?” Dian asked, his burning red eyes boring into Quinn.

A bright light hit Dian’s face at that moment and the shadowman screamed in pain and dropped Quinn. Quinn tasted blood in his mouth when he landed.

“That’s right, asshole,” Buzz yelled.

Dian roared and charged at Buzz, nearly crushing Quinn with his foot but just barely missing him. As the monster rushed forward, Buzz kept his flashlight aimed at Dian’s face. The monster kept trying to duck his face away from the beam while still heading in Buzz’s direction. Buzz ducked out of the way just as Dian was about to smash into him.

“Now!” Buzz shouted.

From the other side of the wall, Carol aimed another flashlight beam at the creature. He screamed again and charged in her direction. Just as Buzz had moments before, she jumped out of the way at the last minute. Dian collided with the wall — and immediately disappeared into it. Quinn had expected him to hit the wall and hurt himself, but instead he was absorbed into it. For a moment, Quinn thought they’d won, but then his stomach dropped as he realized what had happened.

“He’s in the wall!” he screamed.

Buzz turned just as Dian burst out of the wall beside him, hitting him with full force. They rolled together on the ground. When they stopped, Buzz was trapped beneath Dian’s huge shadowy hand. His other arm lifted to smash his fist into Buzz’s face. Buzz struggled to get out, but couldn’t move.

Quinn and Janus rushed toward him, when Carol jumped next to Dian.

“Get your hands off my boyfriend, you son of a witch,” she said, and aimed her flashlight directly at the shadowman’s left eye.

It was the equivalent of a point-blank shot. It didn’t kill Dian, but the creature screamed in pain and rolled off Buzz, covering his face with his hands. He started to flail wildly with his fists, missing Buzz by inches. Buzz stood up, grabbed Carol’s hand and kept running as Quinn and Janus followed.

“We need to hit him with a concentrated blast,” Buzz said.

“I don’t have a flashlight,” Quinn said.

“Use your imagination, goddammit,” Buzz replied.

It took Quinn a moment to realize he was speaking literally. He tried to block out the roar from Dian as he stood up, and ignore the falling stones from the ceiling as the Wyrm slowly devoured the fort.

Flashlight,
Quinn thought, trying to conjure up an image of any flashlight. He dropped the sword when Dian hit him and assumed it had already faded away. He heard Dian lumber to his feet.

“Quinn…” Buzz said impatiently.

Flashlight,
he thought again. But for the life of him, he couldn’t picture a flashlight. It was a mental block, like suddenly not remembering the name of a song he’d just been singing.

“Quinn, my boy…” Buzz said again.

Quinn could feel the floor shake as Dian kept coming.

“Shut up, Buzz,” Quinn replied.

His mind was a total blank.
Screw it,
he thought.
I’ll settle for any kind of big light.

In his mind’s eye, all he could picture was one of those spotlights that car dealerships use to try to draw attention to their business. Quinn pictured it clearly in his mind and then opened his eyes hopefully. There was nothing there.

“Fuck it,” he said. “Run!”

The four of them turned tail and ran as fast as they could, the shadow monster bellowing behind them.

Quinn was going to direct them to the roof of the fortress, but there was no need. With Dian gaining behind them, there was nowhere else they could go. They ran around the bend and saw a door at the end of the hall that presumably the one that opened to the outside.

“We’ll never make it before he catches up,” Buzz panted.

“Way to think positive,” Janus said.

Quinn turned to see Dian towering above them, about to swing.

“Go ahead!” he shouted, and jumped to the right. Dian charged past him, gaining on the others — and then suddenly stopped.

“Good,” Quinn said. He was out of breath and leaned over, putting his hands on his knees while still keeping his eyes on Dian.

He had been in this position years ago when the Headless Horseman chased him and Kate in a dream. At the time, he ducked out of the way in the hopes the Horseman would let Kate go. The strategy had almost worked — until the Horseman decided to charge Kate anyway. He hoped it would turn out better this time.

The creature turned to face him.

“You killed my brothers,” he said.

Quinn stood up and watched as Janus, Carol and Buzz reached the door.

“You’re next,” Quinn replied.

Dian roared again and launched himself at Quinn. Instead of running, Quinn gave a strangled, near comical version of Dian’s yell, and started running toward the shadowman. He heard Janus screaming at him and even the monster seemed a little surprised by the tactic. For a single moment, the two charged directly at each other, both of them bellowing.

Quinn didn’t slow down or question his instincts, betting only that a full frontal assault was the last thing Dian expected. As the creature loomed over him, Quinn didn’t try to get away or dodge aside. Instead, he jumped into the air directly at Dian. The monster was clearly thrown off and tried swatting at Quinn, but he was moving too quickly.

Quinn wasn’t sure what he expected. He had braced himself to hit Dian’s body and get knocked backwards. Instead, he sailed through the creature as if he were only mist, just as Quinn’s sword had.

In this case, that was fine with Quinn. For a moment, he seemed to fly through the air like a superhero, but then he held his arms out front and tucked into a barrel roll. When he stood up just a few yards from the door, he almost couldn’t believe it. He wasn’t the only one. When he opened his eyes, both Carol and Janus were staring at him. Buzz just looked bemused.

“That was awesome, mate,” Janus said.

Quinn didn’t have time to respond, as he heard Dian yell behind him. They could bolt through the door, but Quinn knew that wouldn’t help them. He doubted the sun in this world would harm Dian even if it shone right on him. Quinn ran forward and grabbed Carol’s hand.

“If we all work together, could we summon something bigger?” he asked.

The four of them were momentarily lurched off their feet as another earthquake rattled the fortress. If Quinn didn’t dispatch Dian quickly, he wouldn’t have time to stop the Wyrm from bringing everything down around them.

“I saw what you were picturing in your mind,” Carol replied. “It might work.”

“Might?” Janus asked.

Dian was coming at them again, but Quinn didn’t bother looking up.

“Join hands,” he said. The four of them grabbed each other’s hands. Quinn thought Janus was squeezing with unusual pressure.

“We’re all going to die,” Janus whispered. “We’re all going to die.”

“Shut up, Janus,” Buzz and Carol said at the same time.

“Just concentrate and follow my lead,” Quinn said.

In his mind, he once again pictured the giant spotlight. But this time, he tried to use the mental energies of his companions — and banish the thought that it was too complicated to create.

He concentrated on that image alone, conjuring up the light, but in his mind’s eye, he saw something else. He had a brief vision of Kate, looking like the banshee, fighting with a woman dressed in gold. Quinn’s heart beat faster.

She’s almost here
, he thought.
I can feel it.

“Quinn, concentrate!” Carol shouted.

He pictured the light again as he heard the stomp of Dian’s feet almost on top of them. The key wasn’t to try more, but less, and to be confident that it would appear. When he opened his eyes, a spotlight was standing right in front of them.

“Son of a bitch,” Janus said.

As Dian stormed toward them, Quinn reached forward and switched on the light. The beam was so big that it glared over Dian’s huge body at once. He tried to put up his arms, but they seemed to simply burn away into smoke. Quinn saw the horrified look on the creature’s face as the light started to incinerate him from the outside in. Dian started to scream, but as happened with his brothers, the scream faded away as the light burned through his face.

“’Blinded by the light,’” Janus sang. “’Revved up like a deuce, something something in the night.’”

“Another runner,” Buzz said.

“Really? I could never tell what he was saying,” Janus said.

“I loved that song,” Buzz said. “We used to play it all the time…”

“If you say in ‘Nam, I’m going to scream,” Janus replied. “It’s not that old.”

Quinn wasn’t paying attention to them. As the top half of Dian faded away, the bottom half seemed to drain onto the floor. Quinn aimed the spotlight at the black mark on the stone floor and saw that it was somehow still moving. He had no doubt that if he let any part of this thing escape, it would regrow later. The beam caught the puddle of Dian and though there was no more screaming, Quinn could see the shadowy mass shudder and shake before it too burned up and evaporated. Even once he was confident it was gone, he aimed the spotlight all around the area just to be sure.

“You did it, mate,” Janus said.

Quinn looked at him and was about to smile when the ground beneath them started to crack. He watched a thin line rupture across the stonework on the floor. Quinn turned around and opened the door.

“We’re not done yet,” he said. “That was just the distraction. The main event is still to come.”

The next earthquake nearly knocked them off their feet.

“If we don’t kill that Wyrm….” Janus started.

“We’re all going to die,” Quinn finished.

*****

The wooden door opened onto the top of the fortress, which was a gigantic, flat circle surrounded by an imposing stone wall roughly six feet high. The hill had looked impressive from the ground, but Quinn had not realized its immense size until he stood on top of it. Looking out at the surrounding valley, Quinn could sense the power and history of the place. Despite the clear, bright day, the air felt heavy and musty. It was almost as if he could wipe his hand through a cloud hanging over the fort.

“Can you feel it?” he asked Carol. She nodded her head.

“Kate’s coming,” Quinn told her. “She’ll be here soon.”

The world was… thinner here, he thought. He felt like he was standing at the edge of a stage where an invisible curtain hung. If he could just pull it back, a new world would appear. How long had this fort stood? He wondered if Sanheim had only recently converted it into a prison. The cells below felt newer than this plateau, which seemed like it belonged to an era beyond history. Quinn wondered if he was standing at the center of the world, as well as its origin point. The place hummed with an energy Quinn couldn’t comprehend, but it seemed beautiful. Somehow he knew that Sanheim had tried to corrupt it and, having failed, now wanted to tear it down. It felt wrong, as if Sanheim were committing a kind of sacrilege.