Sleepy Hollow: Children of the Revolution (25 page)

“We are amicable. And yes, I am male, but I suspect you are implying something else.”

Deciding she likes this one a lot better than the last boyfriend of Abbie’s she met—which was years ago, and not even her most recent beau—she asks, “What’s your name, Tall, Dark, and British?”

“Ichabod Crane.”

Oh, this is too perfect. It really was like she walked into PBS. “What do your friends call you? Icky?”

“Not if they want to remain my friends.”

Impressed, she says, “Sense of humor, too.”

Then he drops the bombshell. “I’ve seen the demon in the woods—the one you and your sister saw as children
.”

Jenny is taken aback by that. This is ridiculous, some guy coming out of nowhere and telling her that he believes her, which is absurd, because nobody believes her ever, not even Abbie, who was there, and—

—that didn’t happen! “It’s not real!”

Several people turned to look at her funny as she walked through the quad.

Shaking her head, Jenny started walking more quickly toward the archeology department’s offices.

“I’m not crazy,” she muttered to herself. That whole world was nonsense, with her sister betraying her and British guys from the Revolutionary War and demons possessing her and Corbin helping her and the Weavers and Adams and the training and all the rest of it, and it wasn’t real, it couldn’t be real, because she was happy here and now, on her way to a PhD, not that crazy woman who spent her adolescence and her twenties in and out of loony bins. That wasn’t her.
This
was her.

But it wasn’t real.

And then she screamed.…

THE PART CRANE
was least looking forward to was the bloodletting.

He stood next to the police automobile they had arrived in, holding the Congressional Cross he’d been awarded in one hand, a small dagger in the
other. At the moment, he was simply waiting for a sign. They weren’t even sure that Miss Nugent would be in this house performing the ritual, and it wouldn’t do for Crane to waste time casting a counterspell against magics that were being cast somewhere else entirely.

But once he saw a sign that his very nascent spell-casting ability would be required, he would need to slice open his flesh in order to baptize the cross with his own blood. Crane understood better than most the power of blood. The mingling of his blood with that of Death led to his fate and that of the Horseman being intertwined. The revelation that Death was his old friend Abraham van Brunt made that intertwining even more tragic, for he and van Brunt were already all but blood brothers, before Crane’s and Katrina’s love for each other came between them.

Then there was the golem that Katrina had made for their son, Jeremy, which had grown into a fierce, vicious protector of the boy. Crane could only kill him with the blood of the boy who created him—but Crane’s blood, being that of his father, did the trick as well.

And now this. This medal was awarded to him, and as Whitcombe-Sears had said, his own blood would infuse it with great power. Miss Nugent was doing the same with Whitcombe-Sears’s own blood, but it was diluted with the passing on of the generations. For once, Crane’s being out of his own time was a significant advantage.

Out of the corner of his eye, he caught a flash of light. Turning, he saw that the windows in the dwelling belonging to Miss Nugent were flickering with a light that Crane recognized as being eldritch. That illumination came neither from any candle nor from the lighting bulbs that people in this era used.

The spell was being cast.

And so he took the dagger in his right hand and sliced open his left palm, wincing at the feel of the cold metal on his warm hand, followed by the slickness of the blood that pooled in the cut. Picking up the medal with his right hand, he held his left hand over it, the blood dripping onto the silver.

He started to recite the words he had rehearsed several times in the armory, but then was distracted—

—BY THE SMALL
children running about the dock of New York Harbour. One urchin crashed into Crane’s leg, and he stumbled back for a bit.

Luckily, Jeremy was by his side and able to stabilize him. “Are you all right, Father?”

Crane brushed a silver hair out of his eyes and looked over at his son, who was a man now, as tall as his father. “I’m well, Jeremy, thank you.”

The boy who had collided with his leg had already lost himself in the crowd gathered waiting for the sailing ship that had arrived this morning from England and was in the process of being secured
to the dock so that its passengers could disembark.

“It’s so—so disorderly here, Father,” Jeremy said in a disapproving tone.

Crane smiled. “Perhaps, but that is the nature of a port.”

“I’m glad we don’t live here in town. And even gladder to be going to Oxford!”

Now Crane’s smile dimmed somewhat. But still, he could not deny his son this opportunity.

The last seventeen years had been kind to him and his family. With the colonists’ victory in 1783 came an affirmation of the independence they had declared seven years previous to that. In 1788, General Washington was elected to the office of the presidency of the newly United States, and he won reelection in 1792.

It was the 1796 election that truly showed the world that a new age was upon them. President Washington chose not to run for a third term and his vice president, John Adams, was elected. On the fourth of March in 1797, Washington did something that rocked the world to its foundations: he willingly turned over the reins of power to another. Changes in power were supposed to happen via illness, death, or violent change, yet here was Adams bloodlessly seizing power from Washington.

Now, at the turn of the new century, Crane had received a letter from his father.

In truth, he didn’t receive it as such. Father had
disowned Crane when he switched sides and took up the cause of the colonists against King George twenty-five years ago, and the last letter he’d received from his father was the one declaring that very fact.

The letter that had arrived at the Crane residence three months ago, however, was addressed to Jeremy and assured him that his rightful place at Oxford University was secured, should he wish to pursue it, as was his legacy.

Apparently, Father’s disdain only lasted a generation. Crane would have preferred to have a father who understood why his son made the choices he did, but alas, it was not to be. At the very least, he did not pass on his hatred to Jeremy, or his two daughters, who were innocent of the disagreement between their father and grandfather.

In due course, the sailing ship was secured, and its passengers filed off the vessel one by one. Father was, perhaps not surprisingly, one of the last to do so, as he was walking very slowly and with a cane.

However, he limped his way down the gangplank and walked up to Jeremy, not even giving his son a first glance, much less a second one.

“You must be Jeremy.”

“Indeed I am, sir.” Jeremy reached out his hand. “It is a great pleasure to finally meet you, Grandfather. I’m eager to begin my studies.”

Returning the handshake, Father said, “I’m glad to hear that. I believe that you will enjoy England. It is a
civilized
nation.”

Several tart responses ran through Crane’s head, and he cast all of them out. He did not wish his first conversation with his father in more than twenty-five years to be an argument.

Instead, he went with a platitude. “You look well, Father.”

“I look nothing of the sort,” Father snapped. “The voyage here was miserable, exacerbating my already poor health. However, I thought it important to risk the journey in any event, as the Crane legacy
must
live on.”

“Ichabod!”

Crane was spared having to find a polite way to respond to his father’s comment by the sound of his wife. She was coming through the crowd, their two daughters on either side of her, holding a hand.

When she joined the trio, she smiled. “You must be my father-in-law. I am Katrina Crane.” She bowed her head, the bonnet covering her hair that, like Ichabod’s, was mostly gray these days. “And these are your granddaughters.”

Both girls stepped forward and curtsied properly. “Hello, Grandfather,” the oldest said, and the youngest followed with a muttered “Hello.”

For the first time, Father’s face brightened from the sour expression he’d had from the moment he came out onto the deck of the boat. “You’re both very polite little girls. I imagine that comes from the good teachings of your mother.”

Crane winced.

“Actually,” Katrina said with a mischievous smile, “any politeness you detect from our offspring comes entirely from Ichabod. You will find, sir, that I am a most intemperate woman.”

“I doubt that very much.” Father’s words were solicitous of Katrina, but Crane inferred the insult.

“Father, I
do
wish—”

“You wish
what
, exactly, Ichabod?” Father snapped, turning at last to look at his son. “You committed treason, against the king, against our country, against
me
. And for this treason you have been amply rewarded. The side you chose was victorious. You have a beautiful wife, three lovely children, and an estate in Sleepy Hollow. With all that you have, of what possible use to you is my approval?”

Taken aback, Crane found he could say nothing in response to that.

“Now then,” Father said, turning back to Katrina and their daughters, “I assume you have booked passage to that aforementioned estate? I wish to sleep on a floor that does not buck and weave.”

“Of course,” Katrina said. “Come, Abigail, come, Jennifer.”

Crane suddenly lost his footing on the deck. Once again, Jeremy was there to rescue him.

Why did they name their daughters Abigail and Jennifer?

Then he realized that he chose those names because he knew them. Those names were critically
important to him in another century. When he died during the war.

But he didn’t die, he fought for the whole duration until they achieved victory, and then he and Katrina settled in Sleepy Hollow. He
remembered
this—yet he also remembered being on the battlefield—

—the masked Hessian faces him, broad axe in hand, rising after Crane shot him. It makes no sense to him, though it is hardly the first nonsensical thing he has encountered these past months. The Hessian isn’t even bleeding
.

He swings his axe, slicing through Crane’s chest. The pain is agonizing, a line of fire burning through his ribs, and Crane knows he has only moments to act. In a last desperate move before death, he cuts the Hessian’s head off. Then he falls to the ground, the blood pouring out of him, intermingling with that of the Hessian as he—

—stumbled again. “This isn’t real,” he muttered.

“What isn’t real, Ichabod?” Katrina asked.

“All of this. I didn’t survive the war—yet I lived far beyond it. I was killed, yet I did not die. I slept through Anno Domini 1800, and all the years to follow until I was awakened in the twenty-first century—in which I fight alongside two women named Abigail and Jennifer!”

And then he screamed.…

JANUARY 2014

“IT AIN’T WORKING!”

That was the last thing Beth wanted to hear Frieda say as she smeared the blood of Al Whitcombe-Sears on the six Independence Crosses. “What’s wrong?”

“They’re pushin’ back, seein’ through the illusion’a their heart’s desires.”

Beth looked up and around the living room. Frank, that lieutenant of his, and some other woman she didn’t know were standing at the three entrances to the living room. Each was staring straight ahead, mouths hanging open, arms at their sides.

“All three of them?” Beth asked.

“No, four,” Frieda said. “There’s another one outside.”

“Was wondering where Witness number two was. Why isn’t it working? Is it the Agrippa talisman?”

Frieda shook her head. “I ain’t sensing the talisman on the one outside. Look, Beth, I
told
you, I’m rusty—I ain’t cast nothin’ in months!”

Suddenly, Frank, Mills, and the other woman all screamed at the same time and collapsed to the floor. The screams startled Beth as she knelt down by the fifth cross that she had to smear blood on.

Shrugging, Beth said, “That’s fine, I’ll take it.” She smeared blood on the last two crosses, then stood at the center of the sigil she’d drawn on the hardwood. “Keep an eye on them while I cast the spell.”

“What the hell do I do if they move?” Frieda asked, but Beth ignored her.

Closing her eyes, she started slowly speaking the words she’d been practicing since October, the words she’d been champing at the bit to cast, just waiting for this eighth half-moon to arrive.

She felt the power of the magic infusing her. Intellectually, she knew that the phases of the moon probably had an effect on the earth’s magnetic field and that was what made it possible to cast a particular spell at a particular time.