Preen’s pupils dilated with undeniable bloodlust. “First, I want you to drop your weapons. Then … I want you on your knees.”
Before she could think to protest, her sword and axe clattered to the ground, and her knees folded beneath her. “You have to resort to magic to beat me, because we both know you couldn’t take me any other way.”
“Not much incentive for me to fight fair then, is there?” Preen laughed and sauntered closer to scoop up the axe. Rising to full height, she peered down her nose at Ireland. A vicious smirk twisted the corners of her mouth as she dragged the cold steel of the blade over Ireland’s cheek. “All the people you’ve killed, century after century. Putting you down would be an act of mercy, comparable to destroying a rabid dog.”
“I’m possessed,” Ireland spat, her tone pure venom. “What’s your excuse?”
Preen’s face fell slack of emotion, her stare stabbing into Ireland. Holding the axe between two fingers, she discarded it onto the foot of the closest bed with a heavy fump.
“Conversation time is over. Pick up your sword and turn it around.”
Ireland shook her head in a meager protest. Nostrils flaring with each heaving breath, she was powerless to prevent her trembling hands from seizing the blade and turning it on herself. Razor sharp steal sliced through her palms and fingertips, causing crimson to bloom from her pale flesh.
“Look at how you secretly crave death.” Preen’s gaze narrowed with interest. “I tell you to turn your sword and instantly you go for the kill spot. Unfortunately, that would be a bit too easy for my liking. Put the blade to your throat … gently.”
Ireland’s stare locked on the sword that moved as if by its own accord. “Why are you doing this?”
“Going for the pain before the kill? Maybe it’s because that’s what life is. It’s pain. It’s anguish. It’s having your heart’s desire laid out before you, only to have it ripped away in masterfully agonizing ways you never imagined possible. Or, perhaps by simpler terms, I feel it’s time for the Headless Horseman to live up to her name. Either way, I’m afraid your fate will be the same. Now, if you would kindly apply a slow and steady pressure to that sword of yours.”
“You haven’t seen the Horseman. Not completely. Not yet,” Ireland’s voice broke, an involuntary scream escaping her as the blade broke the skin along her pulsing jugular. Blood streamed down her neck and soaked the front of her shirt. Still, her traitorous hands pushed on. “If you do this, you will, and your last moments on this earth will, be filled with excruciating regret.”
Holding up the copper coin, Preen silenced Ireland’s further threats. “That’s enough talking. Keep cutting, a little deeper this time.”
Ireland forcibly resisted with all she had, her hands quaking with the strain. An intense new level of pain jolted through her as the edge of the blade winged her windpipe, causing black spots to dance before her eyes. In that unbearable moment, she found a glimmer of hope. It could’ve been the blood loss, or a rush of adrenaline, but Ireland found her inner fire to fight. With her breath coming in choked gasps that erupted over her lips in ruddy bubbles, Ireland accepted that she couldn’t stop the blade. Be that as it may, when you can’t outrun the freight train you get the hell out of its way. Making that her new mission statement, she scrambled to get one foot under her and threw herself back with all her might. For a moment, the sword retracted from her neck, her shoulder blades slamming into the edge of a bed frame. One bony hand fell over her shoulder as if urging her on. Through the blurring haze of death’s descending shroud, Ireland found clarity. Closing her eyes, she breathed in the inevitability of it … and found peace.
Amber eyes snapped opened to a world of iron-clad resolve. Filling her lungs, Ireland caught Preen’s bewildered stare. Maintaining unwavering eye contact, she dropped her hands to her sides. No longer did she fight against the Hessian’s will, but surrendered to it. The sword continued to slice away at her throat, held there by the vile essence within her that yearned for freedom and control.
The pain was less now, be that from severed nerves or blood loss. Whatever the cause, it made it possible for Ireland to pull both feet under her and throw herself backwards once, and then again. Her second strike began a domino effect of the narrow beds, each slamming into the next and tipping or toppling at the collision. The witch’s bodies fell on top of each other in a haphazard heap. Some slumped on the last mattress, others dangled off. Riding the wave of the rocking furniture, Ireland spread her arms wide and fell back, the sword finally falling away.
Preen’s frantic cries rang out, indecipherable in Ireland’s ringing mind. Vision fading, she raised her right hand—clad in the cuff of Poe—and clamped it down on the nearest pile of bone. A current moved through her, accompanied by an inexplicable gust of wind that tossed her hair back. Four luminescent orbs of soft blue light floated in from nowhere, settling into the grisly bodies beneath her. Whether her blink of exhaustion lasted a second or a week, Ireland didn’t know. Her next moment of awareness came when gentle hands eased her to sitting and guided her toward the door.
The face of a dark-skinned beauty, with a lion’s mane of hair and deadly gray eyes, hovered inches from her own. Go now. We shall handle the rest.
“Wha-what have you done?” Preen screeched, accusation sharpening each word with a deadly lilt. Pivoting one way then the other, she watched with visible dread as her resurrected sister witches surrounded her.
Restored of the strength she had long sucked out of them, their circle closed in tight. The return of their spirits had blessed them with a more human appearance, yet the savages of time could still be seen in the hollows of their cheeks and the gaping wounds in their corroded flesh. Any possible means of escape cut off, Preen screamed and cowered from the coven that once viewed her as a treasure.
Ireland fell to her knees, the last of her strength quickly depleting. Dragging herself toward the door, she risked a glance back. Ghoulish hands had claimed her weapons and brought them down on Preen’s huddled form again … and again. Ear-piercing shrieks faded into a blood-soaked silence.
Letting her heavy lids fall shut, Ireland found herself at the mercy of the hands that hooked under her arms: dragging, urging, forcing her from the house. Outside, she was enveloped in her own cloak. Her head lolled to the side onto a gaunt shoulder.
“Rip,” she mumbled.
“Hush, child. Don’t try to talk.” His face puckered with concern, though for the life of her she couldn’t recall why.
Regen stooped to receive her in an equine bow. Still, she couldn’t coax her leaden leg to kick over his back.
“Give me your foot,” Rip softly requested, only to bend down and catch it himself.
Her body rose, the stirrup buckle scrapping over her mid-section. Yet before she could hike her leg over the saddle, the force driving her up vanished from beneath her. Crashing to the ground, Ireland’s gaze rolled skyward. Rip’s form hovered over her, an ethereal blue glow emanating from his every pore.
Turning his transparent hands over in front of him, his voice trembled with emotion barely held in check. “With the succubus gone, the spell is broken. Death has returned to Roanoke.”
Chapter 30
Ireland
Ireland couldn’t recall how she got on Regen’s back. She was completely oblivious to the ground shuddering beneath them. Her reality had turned inward to a Vaseline-lens world of dream-like beauty.
There she crossed through the portal to find Wells waiting with a syringe of his magical healing serum. Her wounds melted away, allowing her to bask in the win with her ecstatic team. Happy tears streamed down faces. She moved through the crowd being hugged and clapped on the back by one then the next. Twirling out of Peyton’s exuberant embrace, she found herself face to face with Ridley. His steel blue glare tried to remain aloof and impassive, only to be shattered by a grateful smile at her safe return.
“I’ll look past the ultimate stabbing betrayal since you came back to us sa
fely,” he relented with an impish grin. Pulling her into his embrace, he cradled the back of her head with one hand.
Over his shoulder, Ireland scanned the crowd. As if cued by her desires, the sea of bodies parted. There stood Noah, his simple presence causing everyone else to disappear. Heaven lay in his enchanting hazel eyes that reflected blue from the cloudless sky. Falling away from Ridley, she was drawn by an undeniable pull into Noah’s waiting arms. Tipping her face to his, she bathed in the warmth of his gaze, knowing it to be her today, tomorrow, and forever.
Noah
Noah’s heart ached for Wells. The man had scaled the entire emotional spectrum within sixty seconds. It began with the euphoric high of seeing his wife for the first time in centuries. All his hard work, his persistence that bordered on obsession, and there she was, limping toward him, using Malachi as a crutch. The pit pup weaved around their feet, yapping in excitement.
The moment was perfect … and fleeting.
Wells’ beaming smile morphed into a bewildered frown as Malachi hit the ground, blood oozing from a hollow cavity in his chest. Weena fell over him, her body wrenching with sobs. While the modern day side of the portal had blue skies and birds singing, the ground within the portal seemed to respond to Weena’s anguish, trembling and bucking with violent intensity. The fearful residents stumbled and lurched, clinging to each other to keep their footing. Behind them, the buildings swayed. Windows shattered. A porch crashed to the ground as if made of Popsicle sticks. The not-so-livestock seized up and fell over in the eternal slumber that had evaded them for so long.
“The portal is imploding!” Wells concluded, his face draining ashen. Waving his hands over his head, he gestured to the frantic crowd. “We must get them through at once!”
“Ireland isn’t back yet!” Noah moved in front of him to block him from view. “She sacrificed herself to go in there and save all of those people. We are not—”
“Going to let that be in vain? I quite agree,” Wells interjected, his face morphing from white, to red, to purple. “Her risking her life was a frivolous, careless act unless we give it meaning by finishing what she started! Not to mention, my son is injured! Are you really going to prevent me from helping him?”
“At the risk of Ireland’s life?” Chest puffed, Noah took a threatening step forward. “You’re goddamned right I will.”
“Hey!” Forcing his hands between them, Ridley pried the two apart. “As much fun as this Bo Duke/ Boss Hogg-type showdown is, you two may want to cast an eye to the horizon.”
Three sets of eyes swiveled due south where a figure on horseback swelled from the landscape.
The knot of tension that had lassoed Noah’s heart began to unravel, allowing hope to run free. “Wave them in,” he directed Wells, a slow smile dawning on his face, “she’s going to make it.”
Ireland
Ireland sat with her feet in Noah’s lap, enjoying the gentle sway of the hammock. His thumbs worked the soles of her feet with masterful technique. Still, her mind lingered elsewhere.
“When you think about it, passion was driving us all,” she said. Her voice sounded distant, even to her, as if it was filtering down a long tunnel. “Wells was motivated to the point of obsession to find his wife. My passion—other than you, of course—was to do what was right, to prove to myself that I was stronger than the darkness lurking in me like a virus. But Preen’s passion was different. It was rooted in a hatred that radiated off of her. The saddest part is that it all stemmed from someone else wronging her in a horrible way. And no matter how many people she hurt, or how powerful she became, she could never let that pain go. I bet she was a good person … once.”
“Ireland?” Noah whispered. Leaning in on one elbow, he lined his body with hers. “Come back to me.”
Nose crinkling, her head fell to her shoulder to meet his gaze. “I’m rambling again, aren’t I?”
Lips pursed, he pinched his thumb and forefinger together with about a half inch of space between them. “Just look at where we are.” That same hand rose, gesturing to the paradise surrounding them.
White sand, as soft as powdered sugar, faded into a crystal clear turquoise sea. Palm trees swayed overhead, fanning them with a gentle breeze that licked over their sun-kissed skin. It was utopia. Utter perfection.
“You’ve spent enough time in the darkness,” Noah pushed on. His hand stroked the length of her leg, lingering at the curve of her hip. “Come into the light with me …”
Noah
Malachi’s lifeless form was heaved up onto the shoulders of four of the Roanoke men. Heads bowed, they brought him through the portal as the hero he truly was. Their newfound freedom was sullied by laying him to rest at the feet of his mother and father. What should have been the lovely reunion Wells longed for, turned into two parents clinging together to one another to weep for their lost boy.
For a moment Noah felt guilty for celebrating Ireland’s safe return in the face of so much pain and adversity. Then he noticed the elbowed nudges and whispered murmurs. Turning toward the stares of the growing crowd, he faced his worst fears. The woman known by many various titles—hero, villain, friend, lover, savior—swayed in her saddle. Black gore stained the front of her, her skin a bloodless gray. Sagging against Regen’s neck, Ireland’s head fell to the side to reveal an angry, cavernous slice.
From the pocket of his jeans, her medallion began to burn against Noah’s thigh. With her last request of him echoing through his mind, he took it out and weighed it in his palm.
“It won’t be me, at least not for long. You know that. There, the beast can be trapped.”
“No!” Ridley yelled, breaking the oppressive silence. Lunging at Noah, he latched onto his arm in an unyielding grip. “Don’t do it, Van Tassel. You know Wells has the serum he used after Lenore stabbed Ireland. All we have to do is get her here and he can heal her!”
Wells begrudgingly extracted himself from Weena’s embracing, handing his sobbing wife off to a concerned woman from the town that hovered nearby. Walking with his head down, he wiped the tears from his red-rimmed eyes before bringing his gaze up to deliver the somber truth. “The serum cannot heal the dead. If it could, my son would be hugging his mother right now. Ridley, you of all people know the dire consequences of tampering with the coil of life and death. The truth we must face is that she will make it through. The line is moving at a steady clip, and Regen’s gait is strong. I have no doubt she will make it in time to cross over. The question we must ask is who would we be allowing out?”
“I can’t believe you’re even considering this! You’re supposed to love her!”
“I do love her! And it’s deeper than your twisted co-dependent attachment!” Ridley and Noah went nose to nose, screaming to be heard over one another.
A gentle hand to each of their forearms jerked them from their path of impending violence.
“Ridley,” his name slipped from Peyton’s lips in a feather light whisper. The compassionate sorrow carved into her features somehow made her even more enchanting. A true angel of mercy cast amongst the commoners. “The way Ireland is drooping in her saddle … the angle is incredibly unnatural. What’s holding her there?”
He didn’t want to look. The deep swallow he took to brace himself before pivoting told Noah that. Even so, he turned his glassy-eyed stare in Ireland’s direction. Whatever he saw made his shoulders slump with defeat. Tipping his chin toward Noah, he cast his gaze to the ground.
“It’s Rip,” he bitterly admitted. “Somehow his spirit is holding her on Regen’s back.”
Without another word, the one-time mogul turned on his heel and stomped away, leaving the gavel to decide Ireland’s fate in Noah’s hands.
Noah bit the inside of his cheek hard enough to taste the coppery rush of blood. He wanted Ridley to fight, to show him another option or talk him out of it. That was his chance to swoop in with the Hail Mary pass that would save the life of the woman they both loved.
“You’re the
only one that can make this decision,” Peyton stated as if reading his mind. “But you’re not alone in this. Ask yourself what Ireland would want and hold fast to the answer your heart gives you.”
Ireland
“Not that I don’t enjoy hanging out on my ridiculously small front stoop,” Ireland bounced on the balls of her feet, rubbing her hands up and down her arms to fight off her rash of goosebumps from the chilling evening air, “but I can think of better places to watch the sunset. Like my equally small back deck that has the added luxury of hard plastic chairs.”
“Be patient, woman!” Noah playfully barked, with a nervous chuckle. Glancing up at the shades of gold and scarlet zigzagging across the sky, he nodded as if signaled by the streaks of color. Eyebrows raising, he filled his lungs to capacity and exhaled through puckered lips. “Do you remember this spot?”
Ireland glanced one way and then the other, feeling she was missing a key element from this painfully awkward situation. “My front door? Yes. I remember it whenever I want to enter or exit my home.”
“You’re really going to make me work for this, aren’t you?” Eyes narrowing, Noah’s lips curled in that sideways smile that made her weak in the knees.
“If there’s a script I’m supposed to be following here, I didn’t get it,” Ireland laughed, her body convulsing in another shiver. “And since I’m failing at my part, how about if we go inside where it’s warm?”
“Maybe this will warm you up.” Bending down, Noah pulled a stainless steel thermos from the satchel at his feet and handed it to her. “It’s coffee, which you threw at me the first time we met … in this very spot.”
The contents were hot enough to warm her hands through the steel shell as Ireland accepted his offering. “I wasn’t very nice that day.” She cringed at the memory.
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