Raven (Legends Saga Book 2) (19 page)

“
Where’s my cloak?” She turned to Noah to ask.

He slapped the side of her satchel, slung over his shoulder, in response.

“Good.” She nodded, gulping down her rising trepidation. Turns out shaking off a near death experience wasn’t nearly as easy as she thought it would be. “Keep it close. I don’t think tracking her down is going to be quite as hard as we thought.”

“One ghoul did all this?” Rip gasped, his bulging eyes scanning the destruction.

“That or Godzilla.” Noah’s mouth screwed to the side
. Shifting the satchel in front of him, he fumbled with the buckle. “Maybe you should call on your weapons? Get them out of police impound, out of the hands of some punk kids, or wherever they landed? Just in case.”

Ireland puffed her cheeks and exhaled through pursed lips
just as a fire truck and sheriff’s car went zipping by, their flashing lights and screaming sirens clearing them a path through the wayward bodies filling the street. “And
that
is why I can’t arm up. The mere sight of weapons in this crowd will start a riot.”

But imagine the fu
n
, the Hessian tittered in the back of her mind.

“I’ve told you before, needlessly slaughtering innocent people is
not
my idea of a good time.” The day’s events had left Ireland so flustered her filter failed her, making her rebuttal audible.

“
Who is she talking to?” Ridley winced, pulling away but keeping his pinkie hooked with hers.

Then why does your pulse race at the very idea of it, girl? You cannot lie to yourself forever
,
the beast soothed in a throaty growl.

“The Headless Horseman,” Rip stated in no uncertain terms. “
He lives inside her.”

“
And that’s why she goes all veiny,” Ridley’s free hand waved in front of his face as if drawing her markings, “and Day of the Dead?” 

Wordlessly—because, really, what further explanation was there?—Rip and Noah both nodded.

“I’m
not
lying to myself.” A flush filled Ireland’s cheeks, her argument with the undead growing heated. “The only killer instinct in me is
yours
.”

“
One final question,” Ridley held up one finger, then pressed it to his lips in contemplation. “Is that how crazy I look when the spirits start talking to me?”

Again
the other two men nod, with more adamant enthusiasm this time.

Ridley’s chiseled features crumbled into a scowl. “
Well that’s simply inexcusable. She looks like a raving lunatic.”

“
What?” Ireland snapped. Shaking her head, she dismissed their words before they could even form them. “Never mind, we need to get moving. Follow the destruction to our Queen of the Damned before she burns New York to the ground.”

“I thought that was your title
?” Falling into step behind his slightly manic gal, Noah snorted at his own joke. Her steps stopped short when she paused to shoot him a death glare over her shoulder. “But clearly I am mistaken. You are
lovely
.”

Ireland resumed her purposeful strides, dragging Rid
ley along behind her, unaware that Noah’s attention had been diverted.

“Ire, stop!
There’s a boy!” Noah yelled, before throwing himself into the sea of bodies. He shoved people aside, dodging and weaving through the crowd, while clearing a quickly disappearing path that his friends took advantage of as they hustled to push after him. On the opposite side of the street, balanced on the curb, stood a young boy no more than six years old. Tears streamed down his soot-covered face as he screamed a shrill cry for this mother at the top of his lungs.

Noah took a knee beside him, his flaxen hair falling over his sweat
-dampened forehead. “Hey, buddy. Are you lost?”

“Our car had an accident,” the little boy hiccupped, wiping his nose on
a blood-covered sleeve. “I climbed out, b-but I can’t find my mommy.”

“What does she look like?” Ireland asked as she grabbed hold of a light pole and stepped up onto its concrete base for a better vantage point.

“She has brown hair and her name is Megan,” he answered, his saucer eyes glistening with a fresh wash of threatening tears.

“And what’s your name?” Noah asked, his gaze scanning the boy in a cursory inspection for where the blood could have come from.

“Cameron Michael,” the boy mumbled, his lower lip trembling.

“Well, Cameron, you are being very brave right now. My friends and I are going to do everything we can to get you back to your mom, okay?” Noah paused and waited for Cameron to nod. “But we also have to make sure you’re al
l right. Does anything hurt from the accident?”

“My arm,” Cameron squeaked and pushed his shirt sleeve up his forearm. A gash, about four inches long, sliced his skin in a lightning bolt shape.

“Here, use this to wrap the wound.” Rip shook a handkerchief free from his back pocket and offered it to Noah.

“Thanks,” Noah nodded in appreciation. “Help Ireland
find Megan.”

“Have we given thought to the fact that his mother may not have made it out of the car?” Ridley whispered out of the corner of his mouth, his gaze scouring the crowd
while his hand stayed locked with Ireland’s.

“No!” Ireland barked,
then took a deep breath and attempted to soften her harsh tone. “After …
everything
… we need something good. So, she has to be okay.”

“Fair enough.” Ridley’s chin fell to his chest in a nod of acceptance meant for him alone. “In that case we need to know for sure.”

Without further explanation, Ridley retracted his hand from hers and stepped back out of arms distance. His eyes closed just as the swell of spastic jerks and twitches hit him. His brows knit in tight at the unspeakable horrors he had willingly handed himself over to … all to help Ireland.

Rip’s face brightened as if the last piece of a puzzle had materialized before him. “
Ah
, so he has been holding on to you because it is keeping the spirits at bay?”

“Yeah, he figured
that little nuance out at the cottage,” Ireland said, turning her focus back to the crowd.

“Actually answers a lingering question I had, too!” Noah called without looking over. Cameron’s wound dressed, he made the boy smile by booping his nose.

“They are both noble men,” Rip mused, his index finger twirling the end of his beard. “I would not have thought so of Ridley, yet it
is
true. It really is quite fortunate that you committed yourself to one of them before meeting the other. What a predicament that could have been, attempting to decide between the two. Not that monogamy ever worked for me.” He punctuated his rambling with a wry huff.

Ireland wet her lips and stared at the concrete beneath her feet for a ten count. “I don’t ever want to talk about my love life with you. More than that, I don’t ever want to talk about
your
love life with you. ‘Kay?”

“Afraid you
might learn a thing or two?” Rip mumbled under his breath as he rose up on tip-toe to search the crowd.

Ridley stumbled forward, seeking Ireland’s touch the second his eyes snapped open. “She’s not dead,” he panted, his entire body vibrating in fear. “I don’t know where she is, but she
is
alive.”

“All I needed to know
.” Noah gathered Cameron in his arms and hauled him over his head to sit on his shoulder. “You see your mom, you shout. Okay, bud?”

“Let’s do this!” Cameron’s nose crinkled as his hand curled into a tiny fist.

Keeping a careful hold on his cargo, Noah eased out into the street. Ireland assumed his target to be the dead center of the road, where anyone on the block could see them.

They were nearing that spot when a frantic shriek rose up above the chaotic hum of mayhem, “Cameron!
Cameron
!”

Arms waved
, belonging to a brunette woman fighting her way through the crowd.

A slow smile spread across Ireland’s face as Cameron jabbed a finger in his mother’s direction, wriggling in delight.

Noah removed him from his perch and happily handed him over to a very relieved Megan, who embraced her son first then latched on to Noah for a very grateful group hug. Her lips were forming the words thank you for about the millionth time when the ground shuddered beneath their feet. People stumbled, bracing themselves against strangers to keep their footing. Tremors rattled cars and building fixtures, knocking Ireland from her light pole. Ridley caught her and held her tight against his chest as the earth itself rolled in another ominous wave. To the north of them a mushroom cloud of smoke and debris exploded, setting off car alarms for miles around.

“We need to go,” Ireland said, her jaw clenched to the point of pain. “As calling cards go,
Lenore seems to have found a pretty direct one.”

“I’ve found that subtl
ety is a lost art on the dead.” Ridley’s eyes flared as he fell in step beside her.

18

Ridley

“How can there be no trace of her?” Ireland turned in a half-circle, one hand combing through her hair in frustration. “She somehow sparks one tank at an LP filling station only to ignite a colossal domino effect of ground trembling booms, then—nothing. Doesn’t make sense.” 

“
Perhaps she got her anger under control?” Rip’s lips worked like a cow chewing cud. His beard bobbing with each rotation of his jaw. “I watched a fascinating documentary about a scientist that was inadvertently struck with a substance known as ‘gamma radiation.’ The result of which turned him into a reptilian colored ogre with
horrible
coping mechanisms. Only by calming himself could he revert back to his true form. It is possible the same type of technique worked for her.”

“
Not a documentary, bud,” Noah corrected. His hands were balled in tight fists at his sides. His stare wandered up and down the empty street beside them where all other bodies seemed to have sought shelter. “And I don’t think we’re lucky enough that she just gave up and went back to her cozy little hole in the floor.”

“You seem tense, friend
.” One corner of Ridley’s mouth curled in a sardonic grin. “Perhaps what you need is the
touch
of a good woman?” At the word ‘touch’ he raised Ireland’s hand to his face. Brushing the backs of her fingers across his cheek, he playfully wiggled his eyebrows.

Ireland
extracted her hand and yanked it out of his reach. “Why? Why would you taunt him like that?”

“I’ve been trapped in a virtual hell for two days.” Ridley shrugged without an iota of regret
and reached for her hand once more. “Genuine amusement is really the only excuse I have, and I think it’s a worthwhile one.”

“
Go ahead and take his hand.” Noah jerked his chin in Ireland’s direction at her obvious hesitation to do just that. “Annoying as he is, at least he isn’t whimpering and wetting himself that way.”

“I never wet myself
.” Ridley raised one long, slender finger in clarification. “The whimpering I will openly admit to.”

“
Two men bickering over a deranged killer.” Rip bumped Ireland’s arm with his and huffed a wry laugh. “In my day we would drill a hole in your skull to release the demons instead of trying to court you.”

Ireland’s
chin pulled back in indignation, her free palm raised skyward. “
Hey
!”

  “Apologies,”
he said, pressing his lips together in a thin line. “An
occasional
deranged killer.”

“
Oh, much better,” Ireland dead panned. The rattle of a discarded plastic bag tumbling across the abandoned street behind her whipped her head around. Her lean muscles on full alert. “Something is off here. We checked every possible route from that last intersection where she tore down the lamppost and impaled the ice cream truck. And still no sign of her.”