Crane (23 page)

His cheeks reddened at the sharp slap of her words and she rejoiced in it
. Yes! Hate me! Fear me! Run from me you stupid, sleepy bastard!

“There’s only one option left
, and I need you out of my way so I can do it!”

Rip trailed her march up the stairs and through the kitchen
, allowing a lag time between them so as not to smother her. “You tried hurting yourself before.” His words came soft, measured. “You know that’s not an option.”

Ireland paused at the breakfast nook. Glancing back over her shoulder
, she felt her mask of bravery crack. He shouldn’t worry for her. Of her, but never for her.

“I’m not going to hurt myself.” Her chin betrayed her by quivering, tarnishing her attempt to reassure him. “I’m going to drive as fast and as far away from here as I can
. Praying I can get a safe distance before my internal bomb goes off and
he
takes over.”

She left Rip floundering for a way to talk her down, scooped her keys off the counter
, and darted out the door.

One breath of crisp autumn air.

One boot stomping over the concrete landing.

One beam from the fat
-bellied moon illuminating the thick weave of her cloak.

And everything changed.

29

Ireland

Ireland
’s body instinctively moved with the stallion’s gait. Tipping her chin slightly, she kept herself safely cloaked in the shadows of her hood.

Another red tinged flash. Rip’s body splayed across her front stoop.
One of his arms dangling off the concrete.

Ireland dug her heels into
Regen’s sides and gave him a little slack in the reins. He pulled back slightly to collect himself before bolting forward in a fresh burst of speed.

Rip shouldn’t have been there. Not for the change. Not until she’d contained it.
She racked her brain, trying to remember if she’d
actually
hurt him.

It
had started like a scene stolen straight from a retro noir film. Lightning flashing overhead. Dried leaves whirling around her, caught in the same powerful gust that rippled beneath her cloak, whipping the heavy fabric out in a sharp
snap
. In the distance, heavy hoof beats thundered closer.
Had
it been an actual film, that’s the moment a smoke machine would have belched dense black wisps to curl and snake between her legs. Someone in a cramped little booth would crunch a bag of potato chips over a microphone, adding gruesome bone crunching effects to her transformation. However, this was reality, and reality is often a cruel bitch that prides herself on the pain within the details.

The skin on
Ireland’s face pulled, tightened. Like an animal hide left to dry in the sun. The rises of her cheek bones and chin jutted out, only a paper thin veil of flesh whispering over them. A howling wind whistled over newly exposed bone, triggering a deep ache that stabbed into her marrow. Her mouth watered, the taste metallic. She could feel her gums—parching, burning, receding—from her teeth.

Her own desiccation
had distracted her from the explosion across the street. The neighbor’s shed doors blasted open in a shower of kindling. The sword—believed by Rip to be well-hidden—emerged from within, pinwheeling straight for her. In an automatic, jerk reaction, her hand raised. The hilt slapped into her waiting grasp. Ireland flipped it in her hand, with the practiced grace of someone who had spent their adolescence in fencing lessons and
not
shop lifting lipsticks, and slid it into the scabbard that had materialized on her right hip. Its counterpart erupted from a shallow mulch grave in the flower bed of the tri-level house two doors down. The axe flew, end over end, making a full loop around her before she caught it and holstered it in the leather loop on her hip.

The steady drum of hoof
beats grew deafening before darkness birthed forth a magnificent equine frame from within its cloak of shadows. Ireland stumbled down the stairs and across the yard to greet him. She knew the curve of his face even before laying eyes on the ebony stallion. Knew how he responded to each subtle cue before climbing on to his back. The feel of his hot breath warmed her palm as he nudged her with his velvet muzzle, filling a void within her she didn’t know she carried. Like a lost limb reattached on a grateful amputee.

S
taring into the deep onyx pools of his wide eyes, she let her hands wander over the contours and valleys of his face. “
Regenboog
,” she read off the engraved silver plate on the side of his bridle. “Is that your name?”

He gave a soft whinny in response, w
aves of glossy back mane falling between his perked ears.

“
I wonder what it means.” She scratch his forehead between his eyes. “Gunpowder? Thunder? Vengeance, maybe? That’d be cool.”

“Actually
,” Rip interjected, cautiously stepping out onto the stoop. “It’s Dutch for Rainbow; a name that breeds fear in the hearts of no one. Maybe shorten it to Regen? That’s slightly better.”

Ireland’s
head snapped around at the sound of his voice. Her narrowed gaze took Rip in through the gauze-like effect of a three martini buzz. The tips of her fingers hovered over the hilt of her sword, anxiously drumming against steel.

The thump of his pulse, beneath the wiry tendons of his neck, hummed her a sweet siren song. Tempting her with seductive whispers of exactly where to strike to release the headiest gush of intoxicating crimson.

Reading the look on her alarming new face, Rip took a nervous step back. His hand fumbled with the doorknob. “Ireland? It’s me, Rip. You know me.”

Her head cocked playfully, a malicious grin lifting the corners of her mouth. Of course she knew him. Centuries ago she’d been ordered to kill him; a bothersome task she’d never successfully crossed off her to-do list. Until now. She stalked forward, light and easy, on the balls of her feet. Assuming the role of a predatory cat working up an appetite by playing with its food.

That’s where her memory got fuzzy. Did he pass out? Did she actually draw her sword? Spiriting into the night astride Regen, Ireland still couldn’t remember. The next clear recollection she had found her standing over his slumped form, shocked into submission by the reflection staring back at her from the glass door. She had turned her head one way, then the other, examining her skin, the pale hue of luminescent moonlight, which whispered over the jutting bones of her face in a delicate veil. Dark brown eyes had warmed to melted gold, the color swirling and roiling within the black hollows of her sunken sockets. Sapphire veins scrolled across her cheeks and brow in a pattern as intricate as hand-woven lace. Raising one trembling hand, she brushed the tips of her fingers against formerly rosy lips now kissed by the blue hue of death. In the change she once feared, she found a tragic beauty. One strikingly similar to the sugar skull image inked on her arm.

Disfigured as her features were, Ireland could still find herself within the monster façade. No longer was she lost deep within herself as the Hessian took hold. She had fought for her foothold and secured one. Yet, the victory was not hers alone. Ichabod’s essence, battered from lifetimes cuffed to the epitome of evil, had wriggled out of hiding. She could feel him
, in the thudding of her heart and the odd twitching of her arm, pushing her onward. His motive? Not self-preservation, or even to aid another soul fallen victim to the Horseman. No, there was only one thing that could spur the schoolmaster, long since beaten into obedience, into assuming a defensive stance once more.

Katrina
.

Somewhere
, lost beneath the fallen blanket of night, danger loomed for her risen spirit, the threat coming from a force so malevolent it made the Horseman seem tame.

Covering her hand with her cloak, Ireland dug into Rip’s pocket to retrieve her fail safe—the talisman. Then
she spun on her heel, sprinting to Regen’s side in three wide strides. The talisman disappeared inside the black leather saddle pouch, landing with a muffled
plunk.
Before another wasted second could pass, she slid her boot into Regen’s stir-up for the first—and millionth—time. The feel of settling into the padding of his saddle could only be described as comfortably terrifying.

Steam wafted from
his flared nostrils. Bouncing twice on his front legs, he threw himself into a rear, hooves pawing at the moon. Ireland clenched her thighs, holding the reins in a white-knuckled grasp to keep her hold. No sooner did his hooves smack to the ground, than he launched them forward in a mission completely uncharacteristic to the Hessian—
a rescue
.

30

Ichabod

Ichabod forced his lead feet forward, gaining speed and determination with each step. Within the eye of his emotional storm he found the peace of a concrete certainty. Leaves crunched under his boots as he stepped off the Van Brunt porch. Without breaking stride, he closed his hand around the handle of an ax stuck in a chopping block and yanked it free. First, he would save his friends. Then, he would come back and bury the filthy axe blade deep into the skull of the devil that killed his love.

Brom’s
stallion raised his head, a mouthful of grass grinding between his teeth. The untethered horse didn’t run or shy away. Instead, it arched its thick neck and clomped to meet Ichabod.

The
schoolmaster’s hand lingered over the horse’s soft muzzle for a beat before he hurled himself into the saddle. Driving his heels in hard, he spurred them both toward the inevitable.

The duo
galloped into town, following the sounds of a scuffle that led them to the cemetery behind the Old Dutch Church. Rip and Irv—his brother’s in war—were already engaged in a heated battle with an entity whose very existence defied all laws of science and rational thought. The two were backed up to a fence. The Horseman drew closer with taunting steps, his axe and sword whirling before him. Interweaving blades of terror. Irv’s frantic hands scrambled to break off a fence post. He handed the first off to Rip, before claiming one for himself.

Even as they blocked the swings with the posts, Ichabod entertained the idea of this all being yet another ruse like that
staged by Brom. Granted this Horseman, in his tattered and filthy military garb, had a much more convincing disguise. Yet this still all ventured too far into the realms of the unbelievable. Be that as it may, fact or fiction was irrelevant. Whoever, or whatever, it was planned to harm his friends. That he would not stand for. Ichabod flung his leg over the horse’s head and slid from the saddle. His knees bent to absorb the shock. As soon as his boots sank into the grass, wet with dew, he plunged himself forward to dive headlong into the mix.

Rip
, drenched with sweat that made his hair stick to his forehead, noticed Ichabod’s intent just as he pulled back the axe. “Ichabod, no!
Run
!”

Holding the axe firm in a tight, two handed grip, Ichabod threw his weight into
the strike. The blade sunk into the valley between the headless beast’s shoulder and neck. Brown mire, like old blood, coursed from the wound.

There was no way to determine if the creature felt
the slash in the slightest. However, his obvious displeasure became evident in the elbow he let fly at Ichabod’s face. The schoolmaster’s head whipped back, pain exploding from his surely shattered nose. Black spots danced before his eyes, his nose gushing like a primed spigot. He needed a moment to collect himself, but unfortunately such a pause would not be found.

Ichabod backpedalled as t
he long dead soldier spun on him. His feet tangled beneath him. The ground rose to meet him as consciousness—that fickle strumpet—threatened to forsake him. He had the foresight to shield himself behind the axe, as the Hessian swung his sword down for the death blow. Gleaming steel caught in the solid wood handle and held. Both man and monster pushed against each other, matching one another’s strength in their fight for the upper hand.

Gaping at the
headless corpse over him, the truth behind the legend made itself grossly real. Sludge oozed from the stump of the ghoul’s severed spine as he leaned forward, pressing the blade of his sword down hard against the axe handle.

Rip and Irv flew to their brother’s defense, smashing the fence posts against the Horseman’s back
, enraged cries screaming from their parted lips.

Time slowed
.

The world crystaliz
ed into pristine focus.

The beast had been called to kill his friends. If they distracted
him, averted his attentions for even a moment, he would eagerly complete his task. Ichabod couldn’t kill what was already dead, but that wasn’t really the point, was it? He didn’t need to best the beast, only to stop it from hurting those he cared about. There was only one way to do that. The Horseman had been summoned to collect a head. He wouldn’t rest until that twisted goal had been achieved.

For his friends, for
the memory of his beloved Katrina, Ichabod relaxed his hold on the axe. It thumped against his chest before sliding into the grass beside him, announcing his surrender. His gaze flicked past the Horseman, who arched back, his sword brandished in both hands over the exposed neck stump. Ichabod’s stare locked with that of his friends. In that moment, he offered them all he had left to give; a look of serenity and acceptance that he genuinely prayed would bring them peace.

Then, shutting his eyes, he
accepted the swing of the blade.