Cradling her like a delicate newborn, Edgar eased her slight frame down into the dogwood box. Tears snuck from his lids in an unstoppable current, dotting the front of her dressing gown. Carefully, he arranged her hair around her shoulders and folded her arms over her chest in the same fashion she had been positioned in her first casket. The one she never should have risen from.
Stealing her pillow from their bed, he claimed the pillowcase that held her scent, and respectfully slid the pillow under her head. A quick shake snapped the wrinkles from her favorite quilt before he draped it over her and lovingly tucked it in around her legs. As he worked, her soft breath warmed his cheek—chipping away at his resolution. His weak and trembling arms gave, sending the broken shell of a man crumbling down on top of his sleeping love. Clinging to her, he let her heart beat a steady chorus in his ear as he soaked her gown with his gushing emotion.
“Forgive me,” he wept. “I am a weak man. I-I cannot live in a world without you in it.” Tipping his head to gaze upon her, he indulged himself by brushing the back of his hand across her velvet cheek. “It is the monster that I planted within you that must be stopped. If I can find a way to reverse what I have done without harming your sweet soul, I will be back. I promise you that.”
Bending his face to hers, he let his lips meet hers in one last, tender kiss.
“I love you, Lenore Reynolds, my beautiful flower,” he breathed the sentiment into her.
Numb from the ache of his shattered heart, Edgar pulled himself from the coffin. Never to suffer this loss would never to have been blessed by her in his life at all, and that he could not fathom. His last look at his golden angel came as the coffin lid slid into place … and he hammered the first nail in.
Every swing of the hammer. Every shovelful of dirt that rained down on her tomb. Every floorboard replaced, Edgar felt with crippling anguish. His heart had been ripped from its cavity and buried alongside her. The villainous hand responsible? His own.
When the last plank of wood flooring had been returned to its rightful place, Edgar collapsed in a quivering heap. Tears puddled beneath his head and seeped between those same boards.
“B-b-buried her deep, didn’t ya, Eddie?” Edgar didn’t have the energy to flinch at the familiar sound of Dougie’s voice, he simply tilted his head toward him. “With her covered by Earth it seems you and I are free to play again and I have got some wonderful games in store! Buck up, Edgar! It’s time for you to shake off that horrible infliction of sanity and join me in madness—by choice or force. Either way the end result will be the same!”
Edgar’s forehead thudded back against the floor, a faint noise beneath him causing a fresh shiver to creep down his spine. Muffled by the boards came the unmistakable thump, thump, thump of Lenore’s beating heart.
27
Ridley
Spiraling in an endless free fall, cast there by Young Rip’s hypnotic gaze. The earth itself swallowed Ireland whole, with the impending threat to belch her out at Lucifer’s door. Tortured wails trumpeted her arrival, welcoming her to the tavern of the damned. The monster within her squirmed and writhed, recognizing each and every howling voice as belonging to one of his victims. It was in that moment that Ireland fully comprehended the bitter truth; she was slotted to burn for his sins.
The space around her tapered in, like an enormous rabbit hole. The soil itself expanded and contracted in eager pants at the infamous, long awaited arrival. Tufts of dirt exploded from the walls, stone and debris raining down from all sides, pushed out by clawed hands that punched their way through. Ashen, decayed flesh—cracked and oozing at the knuckles—grappled for her, hungry to tear off a pound of flesh in retribution for the lives the Horseman stole from them. Fighting back or fending them off never crossed Ireland’s mind. While most of the crimes that claimed their lives had not been hers, it was a just punishment for the fault she did own. Hoping for penance through martyrdom, Ireland spread her arms wide and leaned back into her free fall. Handfuls of hair, scraps of fabric, layers of skin: anything those talon-like hands could catch hold of was viciously ripped away. Raw thirst for vengeance tore away her mundane disguise, revealing the blue-lipped, veiny-faced monster beneath. She once thought herself tragically beautifully in the throes of her transformation—an intricate sugar skull come to life. The naivety of that was tragically laughable. There was no loveliness here. Only pretty petals meant to lure prey to a venomous flower.
Was it that realization, or merely a coincidence of timing, that the ground picked that moment to swell and cradle her? The shrieking abruptly stopped. The hands dissipated into nothingness, leaving behind only the memory of their volatile touch. Ireland huddled in a heap on the floor. Her trembling, blood-streaked hands rubbed the length of her shivering arms. Twitching at the faint touch of her own hair tickling across the back of her neck, she flipped her head up, her gaze traveling one direction then the other.
Blackness—as far as the eye could see. An all-consuming abyss where hope itself could not venture.
“H-hello?” she called to no one. Fear cracked her words, advertising the vulnerability she could no longer hide behind a wry smile and quippy comment.
Hot breath sizzled over her bare shoulder where her shirt had been torn away, a gruff voice whispering her name, “Ireland.”
Forcing herself up on wavering legs, she spun at the sound to find … no one. Yet icy fingertips of dread, tapping up and down her spine, assured her she wasn’t alone. Covering her exposed chest with the remnant fabric of her shirt, Ireland turned in a slow circle. Her steps pulled up short at the unmistakable flutter of movement in the distance. An awkward stuttering beat seized her heart before launching the palpitating muscle into a jackhammer rhythm that pounded against her ribs. Self-preservation inched her back, her weary and battered muscles tensing to bolt.
“Ireland, don’t run,” a familiar voice softly urged. Ireland’s breath caught as her father stepped from the shadows dressed in a three piece suit she thought he’d long since burned.
“Daddy?” Instinctively she stepped closer, and paused. Her mouth opening and shutting, searching for the right question through the sea of them plaguing her. “W-where are we?”
Tipping his head, Warren Crane fixed his handsome face into the stern mask he wore only when truly disappointed. “You know where we are, and what we have to do.” With no further explanation, he offered her his hand.
He was strength.
He was security.
He was her salvation from this dismal fate.
Believing those all to be stark facts, Ireland didn’t hesitate to curl her fingers around his. Gradually, he pulled her to him, his hand tightening around hers to the point of bone crushing pain.
Wincing and recoiling, Ireland’s parched lips parted in a complaint she couldn’t force from her tongue. That hunk of pink, wriggly meat was rendered useless by one glance into her father’s eyes. The love that had always been there—no matter what juvenile atrocity she’d committed—was gone, replaced by frosty indifference.
Noticing her hesitation, Warren closed the distance between them. His free hand grasped her upper arm, giving it a slight rub of comfort with his thumb. “My girl, once so sweet and loving. What have you become?” Wrenching both her arms behind her back, hatred morphed his face unrecognizable.
“Don’t talk to it,” a voice she would know anywhere snapped in here ear. Ireland’s mother clasped her only daughter’s wrists and forced her back against a tall stake.
“Mommy, please!” Tears welled behind Ireland’s eyes, spilling down her cheeks and dripping from her chin. “It’s me! It’s still me!”
“My daughter,” Diana Crane explained, tying a thick rope around Ireland’s wrist and yanking it tight enough to dig valleys into her injured flesh, “died the very second that thing infected her.”
Task complete, Diana joined her husband in front of the brush pile pedestal that slithered from the ground beneath Ireland’s bare and bleeding feet. The c
ouple clasped hands, staring up at her like a lowly insect that must be squashed. The darkness churned behind them, taking the shape of more bodies: Noah, Ridley, Rip, and her assistant Amber. All people she cared for deeply, all peering up at her with open distain.
Noah stepped to the front of the crowd, sliding a stainless steel lighter from his front pocket. Holding it beneath his chin, he sparked it to life, the orange glow casting eerie shadows over the sharp angles of his face. “Now, it’s time for you to die along with her.”
Ireland fought against the rope, rubbing her skin raw. Noah casually flicked his wrist and cast the lighter onto the brush pile. The dry wood instantly ignited. Its fervent blaze snapping and crackling, ravenous for their offering. Flames licked up her legs, shooting flares of sparking delight high into the inky darkness. Ireland’s head fell back, a guttural scream of absolute agony tearing from her chest. Smoke burned down her esophagus, scorching her lungs. Through tearing eyes she watched the faces of those she loved disappear behind a wall of smoke and flame, her flesh blistering and bubbling from her bones while they watched. Thrashing. Struggling. Begging for the mercy of the end. For peace to finally descend.
Then, her eyes snapped opened … to a fresh hell.
Heavy drops drip, drip, dripping down in a steady stream. Their unforgiving splotch of gore pooled on Ireland’s shirt, soaking through the fabric to dampen her skin beneath. The second her eyes fluttered open a shocked yelp lodged in her throat. Blinking hard, she tried to change the truth staring back at her. It was no longer Young Rip that hovered over her, but Rip himself. Her guide. Her mentor. Her friend. With her sword buried to the hilt in his gut, its blood covered blade protruded from his back. The hand responsible for wielding such a strike? If circumstance was true … her own.
“No! Rip, no!” Ireland pushed herself up to sitting, catching Rip’s head with her forearm as it lulled to the side. A trickle of blood escaped his parted lip, staining a pink stripe through his grey beard. Her sword bearing hand flitted like a nervous butterfly in desperate indecision over whether or not to attempt to pull out the blade.
“Leave it in,” Noah rasped, dropping to his knee beside her. Light from the subway exit up ahead filtered in to reveal his complexion drained chalky white. “If you pull it out he’ll bleed to death in seconds.”
Ireland gathered Rip in the cradle of her arms, loosening her grip when he cringed at the jostling. “What happened? How did I—?”
“It wasn’t you,” Rip gurgled, blood splattering from his lips.
“Whatever that other Rip was doing to you, wherever he took you in your mind, it was killing you.” Noah raked a hand through his hair, his tone rising and falling with audible self-loathing. “You were screaming … choking. I-I had no choice. Before it could get any worse, I tossed the cloak over you ...”
Ireland’s pulse thumped in her temples, misery squeezing her heart and puncturing it with talons of truth. “And invited the Hessian in,” she finished for him, rogue tears zigzagging down her cheeks.
“Your sword slid into your hand in that way it does.” Noah’s brow pinched tight, his head shaking side to side as he struggled to make sense of any of this. “You moved so fast. One blink and it was buried in him.”
“Why? Why would I ever stab Rip?” Ireland posed the question more to the beast within her with blood soaked hands than anyone in the room.
Rip’s head twitched in a meager attempt to deny her statement. “You … didn’t.”
A spark of hope flared in her chest, hungry for the right bite of air to feed it into a flame. “I-I didn’t?”
“No.” A bothersome lock of hair fell into Noah’s eyes that he moved with a flick of his head. “You stabbed the younger Rip. But, the very second the blade slipped in,” swallowing hard, he forced himself to spit the bitter words out, “they merged.”
And just like that Fate licked its thumb and pinched out Ireland’s flickering match of hope.
“Then, this is on me.” Grinding her teeth to the point of pain, Ireland’s tear-blurred gaze wandered to the crimson soaked fabric that surrounded the base of the sword. A sudden idea snapped her head up. Pivoting her head one way then the other, she searched darkness. “Ridley! Where’s Ridley? If the worst happens—”
“No!” Rip snapped with as stern a resolution as he could muster. “If it is my time, you have to let me go.”
“He sent him away,” Noah explained in a barely audible whisper. “Told him to go find help. All we can do now is wait.”
“Like hell it is.” Shifting Rip off of her left arm, Ireland reached behind her to grasp her cloak that had slipped off when she sat up. “Help me throw this around my shoulders.”
“I know this is about more than a sudden chill. You don’t call on him lightly.” Scooting closer to meet her request, the thick tread of Noah’s work boots scuffed across the floor. “So, what’s your plan?”
“I’ll go Hessian, and Regen will come,” Ireland explained, adjusting the fabric as Noah swept it around her shoulders. “Then, you’re going to help me get Rip onto his back. We will gallop at proverbial balls-to-the-wall speed and get him help.”
“I’ve hung around you long enough to know there’s nothing proverbial about your balls.” Noah’s head turned at the incoming thunder of hoofbeats. “You have a gigantic titanium set, but in this situation I don’t think it’s going to be enough.”
Unraveling her arms from around him, Ireland examined Rip with a critical eye. “The most important element is going to be keeping his core steady.”
Rip’s pale lips parted to murmur, “Ireland.”
If she heard him, her mind was clicking away at too many decibels per minute for it to register. “If the blade jostles too much it’ll do more damage. Maybe you could take his head and shoulders, and I’ll take his legs? We’ll have to practically lift him over our heads to get him on Regen’s back, but it could—”
“Child, stop. Be still.” Rip’s attempt at a commanding tone was chased off by a powerful coughing fit that shook his slight frame and left him grimacing in pain.
Gently, Ireland rolled him to the side to help clear his airway. Bloody phlegm bubbled from his lips, which he spat onto the ground. “I’ll be still once you’re up and around and weirding me out with your old guy antics.”
Noah edged up beside her, the warmth of his arm brushing against hers. “He doesn’t want this, Ireland. You need to listen.”
His rattling cough easing to a labored rhythm, Ireland rotated Rip back with visibly shaking hands and pressed on. “We don’t want to shove the blade in further—if that’s possible, I buried it deep—but if you hook your hands under his pits and hoist him up …”
Her orchestrating efforts were derailed by the rise of Rip’s trembling hand, and his clammy palm pressing to her cheek.
“Ireland, please stop.” His dry, sandpaper tongue dragged across his lips. His words, weak and fading, seeming to act as the last granules of sand sifting through his hourglass. “I need you to know. In my eyes you … will always be … a hero.”
His sentiment trailed off, the light behind his eyes slowly fading. Ireland placed both her hands over Rip’s, anchoring him to her if only for a moment longer. “Stay with me, buddy. I … can’t do this without you.”
Regen galloped up behind her, announcing his arrival with a snort and toss of his regel head. Rushing in with the stallion came a strong gust of wind, blustering down the tunnel. It settled over Rip’s frame, tussling his beard and tossing the course hair off his forehead, as his gaze fixed on a great beyond he alone could see. A slight smile curled the corner of his lips and held. With the gentle, loving caress of a mother’s touch that same wind reclaimed the surplus of years loaned to him. The peachy hue of his skin faded with his very essence, reducing him to an ash molding of himself. Not unlike the statue she’d first believed him to be.
Ireland’s face crumbled, a spigot of free flowing tears gushing passed her lids. Once more the gust churned, delica
tely whispering to the sleeping New Englander that his journey was not yet over. The breeze caught the particles that once defined him, and swirled them up, up, up in a jovial corkscrew overhead before setting off on a voyage wherever the wind would take him.
Noah’s hand curled around Ireland’s shuddering shoulder. Pulling her to him, he enveloped her in the security of his arms as her body dissolved in soul crushing sobs. As if sensing his totem’s sorrow, Regen nudged Ireland’s back. His hot breath in her ear acted as an equine message of love. The comfort of their contact became mandatory for Ireland to draw a breath through her gutted core.
“I got a cell phone.” Thudding down the stairs covered in a light sheen of sweat, Ridley brandished the little black device high over his head. “I’m pretty sure the old woman I took it from, that spoke very little English, thought I was robbing her. But I got it!”
Noah’s hand weaved into Ireland’s hair, his lips brushing the top of her head. “It’s too late.”
“It is?” Raven brows drew together in confusion, Ridley’s gaze flicking to the pillared archway to the right of them. “Oh. I saw … and I didn’t realize …”
Abruptly, Ireland pushed herself away from Noah, wiping her face with the back of her hand. “What else did you see up there? Young …” saying his name was a knife in the heart she made herself endure, “… Rip said that this was the place we were looking for.”
“It’s mostly old, residential housing occupied by overly trusting elderly people.” Ridley raised the phone as a case in point. “But then there’s the country club, currently closed for renovations.”
Raven (Legends Saga Book 2) Page 19
