I wondered what Philip Aleson would say if he knew his own work would be the downfall of Sleepy Hollow. I wondered what he would do if he knew the orchestrator of his own murder was going to take his daughter’s soul, too. After all, it was mine.
That body was mine. That Horseman was mine. Fate, destiny dictated it; she would have no choice in the matter. Her time drew to a close. When the stars aligned, it would all be over for her, and it would begin anew for me. Kat Aleson had no idea what maelstrom of misery was headed her way.
The Blessed Undead
Chapter One
The night air gripped my body tightly, refusing to be of service when I inhaled sharply, trying desperately to fill my lungs with a breath they would not take. Fog covered the field before me, but even then I knew I wasn’t alone. The moon above illuminated the field, revealing to me the figures in the fog. They were human-like, but I knew they weren’t human.
Spirits.
Spirits unlike any I’d seen before.
Their skin was a light grey, almost as wispy as the fog itself. Their nails were black and sharp, ready to tear flesh from bone. They walked on two legs—or should I say they shuffled on two legs—blending into the fog around them. I stood smackdab in the center of the field, surrounded by them, no matter which way I turned.
I glanced down at myself, realizing I wore a strange dress. Sort of looked old in the way it was designed, long and flowing under the bosom area, but new fabric and a zipper in the back. A new dress purposefully made to appear old. My auburn hair was free of tangles, flowing in the wind that brushed past me.
This wasn’t the otherworld. If this was the otherworld, the sky would be a milky white, not black and starry. There’d be no moon. I was pretty sure the otherworld was perpetually stuck in a hazy day; time was a strange thing there. Here? Where even was here? I didn’t know.
My feet, bare on the grass, took off. I darted through the fog, narrowly avoiding the hands as they reached out to me, trying to grab me, to claw at me, to make me stop and look at their hideous, disfigured faces. And by disfigured, I really meant they didn’t have much of a face at all. Small indents where the eyes should be, two tiny holes where a nose should sit, but no cartilage to actually make up the nose. No mouth at all.
I had to gather the dress in my hands as I ran, my heartbeat speeding up, my pace frantic. I had to get out of here, had to find Crane or Bones or…hell, or even him. Yes, I’d take even the Horseman over these guys. These things were just scary.
I didn’t make it too far, because suddenly a fleshy hand snaked around my ankle, causing me to tumble to the wet, dewy grass below. I let out an oof, turning to view what had grabbed me before trying to get away. My first mistake.
It wasn’t one of the spirits with no face…it was my dad. Only—only it wasn’t him.
His pale skin was green and moldy, like it had already started to rot. What should’ve been white in his eyes was now yellow, his nose sagging a bit. When he gave me a smile, I saw his teeth were yellowed and brown. He was naked, allowing me to see the incision in his chest, where the coroner had gone in and taken out his organs, his body weirdly concave because of it.
I bit back the bile that threatened to come up my esophagus, starting to kick, but it didn’t matter. He was impossibly strong, and as he let out a mechanical laugh, he started to drag me. I dug my fingers in the grass below, fighting to stay still, not wanting him to take me anywhere. I knew he wasn’t my dad, but still, seeing the spirit wear his body like that was definitely on the traumatizing side of things.
Away from the never-ending field—which I guess meant it wasn’t so never-ending after all—my dad’s possessed body brought me to a new field, this one of dirt. This one, strangely, had the sun shining brightly over it, no fog and no moon in sight.
Also no other spirits, so maybe it wasn’t so bad here.
The hand holding onto my foot took on supernatural strength, hoisting me up and tossing me over him. I landed on the dirt at least twenty feet away, rolling until I stopped, rolling until my back collided with something hard and uneven.
I struggled to get to my feet, to stand. My dad’s possessed body was nowhere in sight, but it wasn’t time to relax. Nope, because before me, the thing I’d knocked into, was a pyre, a bunch of thick logs and sticks piled up beneath someone tied to a tall pole.
The man was wide and strong, and yet he looked beaten, bloodied, and tired. His blonde hair was matted with blood, his blue eyes shut and his mouth hanging open slightly. He wore his police uniform, his dark blue shirt torn open to reveal the muscles on his chest.
Bones.
I was crawling onto the pyre before I knew what I was doing, moving around to his back to try to undo whatever was holding his arms at bay. I immediately froze when I saw nothing. No rope, no chains. Nothing holding Bones back at all.
“Kat,” a raspy voice to my left spoke, and I tore my confused gaze away from Bones’s hands and looked at its owner. Not ten feet away from Bones’s pyre was another one, this one holding Crane. He was in a similar state, though his slim, tall figure was a bit more put-together than Bones was.
Even in a situation like this, Crane had to look regal.
His glasses were cracked, though.
I hesitated, not knowing what to do, if I should go to Crane or not. It didn’t look like there was any rope holding him back, either—which could only mean…
A blast of invisible energy pushed me off the pyre’s platform, sending me flying. I landed on the dirt a good thirty feet from the pair of pyres, my back beyond sore. It was as I tried to get up that I noticed the woman standing directly between the two pyres, wearing a dress similar to mine, although hers looked antique while mine was a bad attempt at it.
My breath caught in my throat.
The woman was beautiful. Her light brown hair sparkled red in the sun, its lengths somewhat curled and drawn up by a pin on the back of her head. She wore short white gloves on her hands, which were folded across her stomach. Her nose was upturned, as if she thought she was better than me, than all of us. And maybe she was.
Katrina Van Tassel. The original. The one and only.
No. She wasn’t the one and only. I was here. I was Kat fucking Aleson, and I wasn’t going to let this witch frighten me.
I steadily moved to my feet, taking my time so as to avoid tripping and falling and making a fool of myself when I was trying to look badass. “Let them go,” I shouted, my own hands curling into fists at my sides. I might not have gloves, but I didn’t need them. She might look sophisticated and rich by the standards of centuries ago, but she was nothing now. I’d make her see that.
She tilted her head ever so slightly, her eyes a mirror of mine: a light green, a pure green in that there was no brown in them, nor no blue. “You think you can beat me?” she asked, her voice—my voice—sounding way too snobbish. “You believe you can triumph here?” Her full lips curled into a smile, though she did not laugh.
God, I’d never get over staring at myself like this. It was weird. There were no other words for it.
“How about this—” She lifted her gloved hands, clapping once. Two fires immediately erupted in the depths of the pyres, one under each of my men. “—I’ll let you save one. One, Kat. Not both. I’ll let you pick one, and that is only so you realize that I am in control here, not you.”
Bullshit. I couldn’t pick one. That…that went against everything I wanted. I didn’t want to choose, and I sure as hell wasn’t going to let either one of them die.
But then…what could I do? I wasn’t as powerful as her, and my witch side wasn’t exactly taught and groomed from birth. I’d only recently discovered what I was.
There had to be a way. There had to—
Katrina’s smile only grew. “Too slow,” she stated, and suddenly the fires behind her erupted in a tall, burning blaze. The flames grew far too fast to be a natural fire, their tendrils rising to lick the legs of Bones and Crane.
“No!”
I cried out, stepping toward them, wanting to rush to them to try to save them, but suddenly a strong pair of hands grabbed my upper arms and held me back. This time, these hands did not belong to the rotting corpse of my dad. These hands, I knew I’d felt them before, and when I felt their leather clenching around my arms, I felt the tears start to form in my eyes.
The body behind me was a huge one. A monster in its own right. Its chest was the widest, strongest chest I’d ever seen, ever felt as it rose when he breathed in.
“No,” I said again, the tears freely cascading down my cheeks. My men’s screams filled the air as their skin started to bubble and sag, as the smoke began to choke them. “Let me go.” But no matter what I said, no matter how hard I struggled against him, the man behind me would not release me.
The Horseman. He wasn’t mine, but…but he wasn’t supposed to be helping her. Couldn’t he see that she was insane? I was the one who helped him find his head—well, technically, that was Crane and Bones who followed the directions I’d written down…and even more technically, I guess I wasn’t even in my right mind when the directions had come to me, almost like I’d been possessed.
Which was impossible, unless…
I met Katrina’s dour glare, knowing, deep down, she’d had a hand in it all. Everything that had happened was her doing, not fate. This wasn’t destiny of its own design; it was hers. All of this was for the man behind me.
Bones and Crane went limp, and I tore my gaze away, not wanting to look. Seeing the men I cared deeply about being tortured and killed was not ever on my list of things to do. They deserved to live happy, long lives, not die at the hands of a madwoman.
“Make her watch,” Katrina’s voice echoed, bouncing in the air until it hit my ears, the words pushing their way into my brain.
Behind me, the man I thought was on my side released my arms only to grab onto my face. His hands were so large, they nearly engulfed my entire head, but he made sure not to cover my eyes as he forced my head back to the scene before me. I supposed I could close my eyes, avert my gaze as best as I could, but with Katrina and her magic, she’d be able to stop me from doing that, too.
“You,” Katrina spoke, “are nothing.” The flames eating away at Bones and Crane had taken their clothes and their hair. Their skin was ashy and singed, and yet the fires still burned at them, and I had the feeling the flames would not stop until my two men were nothing but literal bones. “You have nothing but what I allow you to have. Each and every breath you take is on borrowed time.”
In a flash of wind, Katrina was before me, and the man behind me still held onto my face with vigor. My head felt like it was being crushed. Her green eyes bore into me, two daggers straight to the heart.
“You are weak and pathetic,” she hissed, her teeth as perfect and white as mine. We truly were doppelgangers of each other, weren’t we? “You are worthless.”
“And you’re a bitch,” I said, “but you don’t see me going around telling everyone.” The hands holding onto my head squeezed, the pressure put upon my skull intensifying. I didn’t doubt the Horseman could pop my head like a balloon if he wanted to.
It’s funny, because I’d started to think he was mine, too. I’d even given him a name and everything. Me and three guys, one big, somewhat happy family. Sometimes they argued, sometimes they bickered, but deep down, they all cared about each other. They all cared about me. Of course, Bones and Crane would never admit they liked each other out loud, and as for the Horseman? He didn’t really talk much anyway.
Okay. So maybe I was the happy one in that scenario.
I should’ve known better. I could never be happy. My life was always destined to end like this: at the hands of the Headless Horseman of Sleepy Hollow and the new and improved Katrina Van Tassel.
“Do whatever you want to me,” I said, wincing through the pain, “but know that I’m going to fight you. I’m going to go down swinging. If I’m lucky, I’ll take you with me.” I didn’t want to die, but there it was. Plain as day. This bitch could try to take me down, but by God, I’d grab her by the throat and drag her down with me.
I planned on saying more, but I blinked…
…and then I woke up.
I lay in bed, the comforter piled around me, keeping me warm. My eyes struggled to open, and I stared at the ceiling. Just a dream, I told myself. Just a dream that was more like a nightmare from a horror movie about ghosts, but still just a dream. Crane and Bones were not burned at the stake like witches; Katrina did not have control of the Horseman. Everything was fine.
And by fine I meant relatively normal. I’d pretty much moved into Crane’s house, and Bones was over all of the time. We were literally like one family, though a bit on the unconventional side. Crane and Bones bickered like an old married couple, and the Horseman was doing his best to navigate the modern world while still being my stern, stoic bodyguard. I’d packed up most of my dad’s house by now, since I could leave Crane’s house without fear of losing myself in the otherworld thanks to the warded charm he’d got me.
It was a necklace, and not even a pretty one, but it kept the oogie-boogies away, at least.
I got up after tossing the covers off me. I set a hand on my chest, feeling my heartbeat still racing. Focusing on my breathing, I did my best to calm myself down, reminding myself, it was only a dream. Katrina Van Tassel wasn’t here. She was dead, a long, long time ago. These dreams, my powers—it had to be because I was her doppelganger, because I was a witch just like her.
After a quick shower, I headed downstairs for coffee and breakfast. I found Crane sipping his usual tea, reading the paper like he was fifty years old and not thirty. His thin shoulders were squared back, and he wore his usual ensemble of nicely-pressed clothing: light pants, a light grey button-up shirt, and dress shoes, even though we were just in his house. His brown hair had grown a bit, and today he had it combed to the side.
Honestly, he looked like a stuck-up, preppy boy-turned-man who had more money than he knew what to do with. And I supposed he was, in a way. But I liked him all the same, clothing choices and all.
Crane’s jade eyes flicked up, staring at me over his tea as he watched me walk into the extravagant kitchen. It was definitely inspired by all of those home modeling shows. Subway tile, granite countertops, a farmhouse sink, painted cabinets…don’t get me wrong, it looked beautiful, but it was a bitch and a half to keep clean. Call me lazy.
He wasn’t alone in the kitchen, though. Another presence stood near the coffee pot, his towering figure hunched over as he stared intently at it. Though his back was to me, I knew his eyes were pitch-black, the color of pure midnight. He wore clothes given to him from Bones, but those clothes were a tad too tight on him, not that I was going to complain. Seeing the dark fabric stretched taut over his muscular shoulders wasn’t something any straight woman would complain about. His hair was black, cropped short at the sides, the front of the longer bits hanging just a tad over his forehead.
I still wasn’t quite used to having him around, but I was thankful he now allowed me to be in different rooms from him. When he first came back, when they’d saved me from the spirit possessing my dad’s body, he didn’t leave my side.
The scabbing scar on my arm itched, and I glanced down to look at it. It was almost healed, but it would be an ugly scar. At least I didn’t lose an arm to an infection or something; when I told Crane what had happened, how a piece of my dad’s forearm—AKA a fucking jagged bone—had made the cut, he was amazed I didn’t catch any infections from it. Cutting your skin with gnarled bones wasn’t that safe, it turned out.
“Wash,” I spoke, moving to his side. I nearly set a hand on his back, but I stopped myself. Even after these last few weeks, I wasn’t sure how much touching I should be doing with him. I was drawn to him, yes, but he was the Headless Horseman, even if he wasn’t so headless anymore. He’d killed people, one of them right in front of me. “I told you before—you don’t have to stare at it. You can go and do other
things while it’s making your coffee.”
Yes, I named the Headless Horseman Washington, after the man who wrote the original tale himself. Wash was just easier to say more often. Shorter. Less stuffy and old…even though Wash was kind of the picture of stuffy. Or stiff. Maybe he was just really, really stiff after wandering the otherworld for years in constant search of his head. He’d probably grown used to being headless.
“Don’t bother,” Crane remarked, setting the paper on the island before him. He sat in one of the barstools, his posture remarkably straight. “I believe he enjoys watching the cup fill up.”
I turned my gaze back to Wash, tilting my head up to stare at his face. God, he really was tall. Six and a half feet, at least. He put both Crane and Bones to shame with his figure. He dwarfed Crane’s frame, and he even had more muscles than Bones. It was hard to believe Wash was a real man and not something made up from a horny woman’s imagination.
The moment the coffee cup was full, when the Keurig stopped running, Wash snatched the coffee cup off it and brought it to his mouth, taking a swig before I could warn him that it was hot, something he should know by now, but probably slipped his mind.
We’d been doing our best with him, but sometimes it was hard. It was like he forgot this was the real world and not the otherworld, that things were different here. That, just because you want the coffee to be sweet doesn’t automatically make it so.
And, no surprise, he instantly made a disgusted face.
I gently reached for his hands, taking the coffee cup from him. When my fingers grazed his, a jolt of heat zapped through me, reminding me that it’d been a little while since I’d had some physical action. It was harder to do than you’d think. Having Wash here, it was kind of like having a man-sized child nearby, all the time.
Hollowed: Return to Sleepy Hollow, the Complete Duology Page 21
