Tipping her chin to her shoulder, Francis shouted up the stairs, “John! Can you come down here, please?” She turned back to Edgar with her lips pursed, regret creasing her brow. “We asked too much of you holding the wake here. We will remove the casket immediately. Until then, you should retire for the night.”
“Francis?” The stairs creaked beneath his father’s heavy footfalls. “Did you call for me?”
“How I wish you had trusted me,” Edgar quietly stated. Knowing his time had run out, he spun to face his fallen angel.
John Allen rounded the corner the same instant Edgar gulped down his trepidation and plunged his hand into the silk lined casket.
“Edgar! No!”
His father’s shouts pinged off of him, as if mere pebbles being tossed at a thundering steam engine. Fingers tips brushed cold nothingness; stroking, petting, encouraging life’s vital warmth to seep into that beautiful vacant shell. Edgar’s heart convulsed in a joyous stutter beat the instant a guttural groan seeped past the rouge painted petals of her lips.
Snatching the oil lamp from the side table, John brandished it defensively before him. With his free arm he shoved Francis behind him. “Step away from the coffin, son. Walk to me, quickly!”
“She needs me,” was the only argument Edgar offered.
His own pressing need for her became visible in the adoration that radiated off of him as he watched Lenore’s impossibly long lashes flutter open. The bruised curtains of her lids drew back to unveil those enchanting lavender eyes eternity had attempted to confiscate.
“There now,” he cooed, reaching both hands in to coax his betrothed from her premature tomb. “Steady, my flower.”
Slowly, her head turned to find his face, her lips moving to form his name in an inaudible whisper.
“John! What is it? What has he done?” Francis shrieked, her clawed hands seizing handfuls of her husband’s nightshirt.
Lenore’s lips curled from her teeth at the abrasive racket, her clammy hand closing around Edgar’s wrist in an unrelenting vise grip. The earth vanished beneath Edgar’s feet in a jarring swoop. Lenore had sprung from her casket, toting him along like a cherished rag doll. In mid-air she flung him over her shoulder. Then, hit the ground in a low-crouch to snarl through her teeth at his astonished parents.
“Unarguably an unexpected turn of events!” Edgar proclaimed, his voice muffled as his face bounced off her rump.
Throwing her head back, Lenore unleashed an unearthly screech that quaked the paintings hanging on the walls. A three stride head start was all she needed to launch herself through the parlor’s stained-glass window. Shards of multi-colored glass tinkled to the ground as she spirited off into the night with a powerless Edgar in tow.
15
Ridley
The monstrosity had eyes for only Ridley. Its gleaming red stare locked on him from its perch beside the emergency room’s bed three. Ridley tried to play it cool, as if he hadn’t noticed its seething pants directed at him alone. He had even gone so far as to pick up a copy of Field & Stream from the table beside him to pantomime being engrossed and oblivious to its presence. The tall, shadowy form faded in and out, like a camera lens trying to focus. Possessively it hunched over the age shriveled body of the man lying in the bed. Ridley guessed that body to be its own. The heart monitor beside the bed tracked a rhythm so faint one missed beat would cause it to shriek its flatline alarm. Panicked desperation vined and licked around the sinister spirit in a tangible black fog of despair.
Rotted teeth parted, freeing a malicious hiss. “I’m not ready. Put me back.”
Ridley shifted in his seat, making a point not to glance up despite his trembling hands.
“You hear me, boy?” the specter snarled, deadly darts of accusation shooting from the inhuman crimson orbs of its eyes. “Undo it! I know you can!”
Swallowing hard, Ridley gave up on the magazine and tossed it aside. The curtain to Ireland’s room was directly in front of him. The very second he saw the doctor’s hand begin to draw that fabric divider back he was prepared to sprint in there like a Kenyan at the Olympics.
“Don’t you ignore me, you ungrateful prick!” the apparition bellowed and charged straight for him. Its jaw unhinged and swung out in a wide yawn—like a hungry python set on swallowing its prey whole.
“Be gone, ghoul!” A hand, as if from nowhere, plunged into the specter’s core and dissipated it into a cloud of churning energy.
Standing framed by the dissolving wisps was the man that appeared to Ridley numerous times to guide him since this all began. His dark, hair held a harsh wave that made it appear on the border of disheveled. Heavy bags sagged beneath his soulful eyes. His carefully trimmed mustache twitched as he attempted a comforting smile that landed closer to a grimace. Turning to Ridley, the heels of his shoes clicked together with the precision of his pivot.
“You seem less manic than before.” The man’s hands smoothed any threatening wrinkles from his suit coat before he eased himself into the chair beside Ridley. “Perhaps you are taking to your curse better than I did?”
Ridley scanned the room for anyone that may be listening. Finding the people around him too preoccupied to notice, he muttered out of the corner of his mouth, “Not likely.”
“I meant it as a compliment.” For a spirit, the man looked surprisingly dapper. Death seemed to smile on him, marking him as a favorite with a palette of alabaster skin, peach cheeks, and rosy lips instead of the doldrums greys of decay. “I suppose it is a bit early in the transition for you to see it as such. Kind words for another day, perhaps?”
Ridley’s bulging eyes stared hard at Ireland’s curtain, as if trying to will it open with his mind.
“Not much for conversation today, I see. Very well, let us move on to the reason for my visit.” In a movement that appeared reflex, the man patted at the interior breast pocket of his coat, smiling to himself at what he did—or didn’t find there. “You did as I requested and freed Lenore. My sincerest gratitude for that, good sir. However in doing so I assume you have learned why it is crucial you use your ability only under the most dire of circumstances?”
“Or never at all!” Ridley snapped, causing the mother and child across the waiting room from him to glance up questioningly. Turning his upper body away from their stares, he hid his mouth behind his hand. “That thing is a monster. If that’s what happens every time, I’ll pass on playing patty-cake with the dead. Thanks.”
The man’s lips screwed to the side with disappointment. “I had hoped she would fare better. Unfortunately, it seems my greatest fears have been justified. The time ‘neath the earth has enraged the seething beast that walks in her shell. The spirits are whispering that she has already killed. A young man I believe, ripped his arms off and beat him with them. He will not be the last.” His expectant stare swiveled to Ridley. “It falls to you, my boy. You must do what I could not. You have to stop her.”
Dropping his hand, Ridley seethed at the man he was well aware only he could see. “And how the hell am I supposed to do that? You throw me into this, giving me cryptic clues that tell me exactly dick!”
A few more heads turned his way. This time he found it practically impossible to care.
The man rose from his chair and tugged down the front hem of his black suit coat to straighten out the creases. “You are life. She is death,” he casually stated. “Together, you have all that you need.”
“She? As in the undead beast? Call me crazy, but she doesn’t strike me as a team player.”
Once more the man answered with a conversational side-step and a wry smile cast over his shoulder. “And what of the item I charged you to retrieve from her tomb?”
Noticing a curly haired nurse talking to a security guard and gesturing his way, Ridley murmured his response to the vinyl flooring. “Yeah, I got them. Dare I ask how you knew they were there?”
Even as the man dipped his head in a brief nod of acknowledgement, his form began to fade around th
e edges. Turning his back to Ridley, he strode toward the solid wall before him.
A rush of panic reddened Ridley’s face, his heart instantly hammering in his chest at the prospect of being left alone again … with them. “Wait! How did you know?” Grasping at straws, he tested his growing theory by calling out a single name, “Poe!”
The man paused mid-stride, confirming Ridley’s suspicions of his identity with a knowing smile cast over his shoulder. “Have you not yet figured it out? I knew … because I was the one that put her there.”
With those as his parting words, Edgar faded into oblivion.
“Hey, Ridley. You okay, man?” Noah asked, eliciting a rather unmanly squeal from Ridley as his arms and legs drew up tight into a defensive tuck.
“He weaves an intricate tale for a dead guy!” Ridley shouted at nothing, and then shot Noah an apologetic look.
“Maybe not the best thing to yell around critical patients,” Rip muttered, wiggling his fingers in a polite wave at the glaring nurse behind the counter.
“Fine—I’m fine,” Ridley chanted, mostly to himself.
“Didn’t ask, but good to know.” Hooking his hand under Ridley’s arm, Noah used a bit more force than necessary to guide him to his feet. “They just brought a man into the ER that died on the way here. Damnedest thing, his girlfriend claims he was beaten to death by a zombie missing half her face.” Noah’s nostrils flared as he forced the words through gritted teeth. “Sound like anyone you know?”
“She beat him with his own arms,” Ridley helpfully added, then winced at the rush of barely concealed rage that expanded Noah’s broad.
“Yes, she did.” Leaning menacingly close, Noah dropped his voice to a stern whisper. “Remind me again, who set her free?”
“Is there a problem over there?” Nurse Resting-Bitch-Face asked, her arms crossed under her ample bosom.
“Apparently there was a mix-up over who was supposed to bring the get-well flowers,” Rip’s head cocked as he graced her with a grin that had probably been charming two centuries, and one scraggly beard ago. “Your hair is lovely, by the way. How do you get it so … crunchy?”
Noah jerked as if the hairy, little hobo had slapped him, his infuriation diminishing as the prospect of getting tossed from the hospital grew. “Let’s remove ourselves from the nurse’s death glare and go check on Ireland. Then, we need to go find Ridley’s little pet.”
The curtain was being shushed across its hanging bar before Ridley could form his warning that the doctor may not be finished yet. Words in general failed him as he caught a parting glance of the rotund physician winding his wristwatch and disappearing in a clicking production of silver fog and blue sparks.
“What the hell?” Noah yelped. Dashing to her side he immediately checked her pulse. Satisfied with what he found there, he picked up one of her limp hands, turned it over to inspect it, then dropped it to the mattress and checked the other. Finding nothing there, he lifted the paper-thin blanket to peek at her wound. His lips moved in an almost inaudible whisper, his face draining ashen. “Look.”
Heavy lids, that appeared pale and bruised, fluttered open just as Noah tossed Ireland’s blanket aside. Maneuvering her hospital gown to maintain as much modesty as possible, he exposed her flawlessly flat stomach—noticeably absent of any stab wounds.
“I know we haven’t really been together long enough to have had this conversation,” Ireland slurred, sleep making her words drawl out slow and heavy. “But I’m not really open to this level of public sharing.”
“Sorry,” Noah huffed with a laugh that held more shock than humor. “I normally wouldn’t be this forward with my girlfriend’s body. But discovering you’re an alien from Krypton stunned basic social conduct right out of my head.”
Ireland’s heavy lashes drew back down to the tops of her cheeks. Blinking hard, she attempted to chase away fatigue’s stronghold. “Maybe it’s the meds talking, but that made exactly no sense.”
“Perhaps it’s a Horseman thing?” Rip offered, scratching a hand over the back of his scruffy neck. “Although she’s never healed particularly fast before.”
“Healed fast?” Ireland rasped, her face a question mark. “She cored me like an apple.”
“See, but that’s the thing …” Instead of attempting to explain, Noah used the push button to ease the head of Ireland’s bed just enough for her to see for herself. “You are a shish-kabob no more.”
“Wha-? How is that possible?” The shocking revelation flipped Ireland’s alert and alarmed switch. Franticly she riffled with the fabric of her gown, moving it this way and that in search of the wound that—by all laws of nature—should have still been there. Finding nothing but yoga-toned abs, which Ridley found quite impressive, her head snapped up. Her gaze darted around the room, from one of the men to the next, as she toed the line of full-blown hysterics. “It-it had to be the doctor! Only he wasn’t really a doctor, and he knows what I am. Did you see him? He injected me with—something. I don’t know! But we have to find him! I can bitch-slap him with the hilt of my sword until he talks, if that’s what it takes!”
Ridley hid his smirk behind his fist, happy to see someone else in the group taking the role of the crazy one for a change.
“We could go after the guy that miraculously healed you,” Noah soothed, his tone calm and steady. Easing the tape free from her arm, he pulled out her I.V. port. “Or, we could make that step two after we stop the stab-happy dead chick that put you here in the first place and has since developed a taste for blood and violence. Personally, I’d rather send the mystery guy a fruit basket. But, ya know, your call. Either way, we need to get you out of here before the medical staff starts asking questions we can’t answer.”
More conversation followed as Noah eased Ireland to sitting and Rip went in search of her clothes. Unfortunately, Ridley could only half-listen to their further exchange. From the dark corners of the room a spirit he had never encountered emerged. Its presence, and the depraved power emanating off of it, chilled him to the very marrow of his bones.
“There is still time to pick our side, R-R-Ridley,” the freckle-faced ghoul stammered through blackened teeth. Matted hair, the color of a rotted tangerine, stabbed off his head like a wicked armor of horns. His attempt at a smile made gruesome by his severely dislocated jaw that swung loose as if on a rusted hinge. “Your part in this is could be huge. An army of loyal subjects could be yours to lead if you only listened to the line of people dying to meet you.”
Ridley’s eye twitched at the grating cackle that resonated off the walls. His skin crawled as the shadows all around him elongated, writhing and thrashing into forms more demon than human. Inhaling a deep, shaky breath, he shut his eyes and tried to retreat into himself even as the cold, wisps of their claws raked over the skin on the back of his neck ...
A soft, but firm, grip tightened around his wrist, pulling him back from that dark precipice. His eyes snapped open to find Ireland staring back at him with iron-clad resolve. The yellow, flickering fluorescent lights overhead illuminated her like a poor-man’s archangel.
With her free hand she finished thumbing the buttons closed on the flannel shirt Noah had loaned her. “We’re all leaving here, together,” she assured him.
Breathing in her gift of peaceful serenity, Ridley laced his fingers with hers. The compassion she showed solidified one nagging thought as truth:
Wherever this journey took them, he would be with her until the bitter end.
16
Edgar
“Dearest heart?” Edgar’s arms dangled over his purple face, slapping against the back of Lenore’s legs with each of her galloped strides. “Could we pause for a minute? Perhaps put me down and allow the blood to return to my head? My consciousness has waned thrice now and these moments of black are getting noticeably longer each time.”
The sticks and leaves that snapped beneath her feet acted as his only response.
Blinking hard in a paltry attempt to c
lear the black spots that frolicked before his eyes, Edgar tried again. “Lenore, please,” he softly pleaded. “I brought you back, love. I will not flee or harm you. Your soul is an extension of my own and I would give my very life to protect it. Now, can we ple—”
His proclamation trailed off as oblivion claimed him once more.
Edgar had no way of knowing how much time had passed when the curtain of black finally rescinded. The face of his dark angel blurred in and out of focus before him, life’s second chance having altered her violet eyes to a bright ethereal purple. The whites that once enveloped them now stained the inky black of a moonless night. Concern creased her porcelain brow as she gazed down at him.
“Where are we?” Edgar eased himself to sitting, gripping the grass with both hands when the world spun around him.
Lenore struggled to force out a rough stammer, “T-t-tracks.” Grinding her teeth in frustration, she settled for jabbing a thumb over her left shoulder.
Overhead an owl hooted. Lenore’s entire body tensed, her head whipping around for the culprit.
“Be still,” he soothed, reaching for her. “Tis nothing more than a bird.”
Flinching from his hand, Lenore sprang to her feet and forced a valley of distance between them.
Edgar eased himself up onto still wobbly legs, his lips pressed in a firm line of confusion. Every cell of his being was singing out to touch her. To pull her body to his and rejoice in the sensation of touch that had momentarily been stripped from him. His own longing aside, her taut muscles and nervous twitches shouted that such behavior would not be well received.
“Lenore?” the name of his angel slipped softly from his lips.
Yellow hair, made wild by the wind, lashed against her face as she glanced his way.
Raven (Legends Saga Book 2) Page 11
