The Blessed Undead (Return to Sleepy Hollow Book 2)

by Candace Wondrak

  Crane gave me a look. “Kat, I don’t want to put you in danger again. If you hadn’t left the directions to Wash’s head, I—”

  Again, I knew what he was going to say. They wouldn’t have found me. Crane was speaking the truth, but it was a truth I didn’t want to hear, a truth that only made me feel worse—but then, of course, it made me wonder…

  “I will be fine here,” I said again, moving towards him. I wrapped my arms around him, giving him a hug that was meant to be comforting. Whether or not it ended up being comforting at all was anyone’s guess. “Go. It’ll take you less than half an hour.”

  Surely I could handle a half-hour alone with Bones and the spirit inside of him, couldn’t I?

  Crane gave me a long, hard look as I pulled away from him, as if he didn’t know whether or not to trust me. I supposed I couldn’t blame him, for it wasn’t too long ago when I had made some not so good decisions, but still.

  “As long as you promise to call me the moment something happens,” Crane muttered, quickly adding, “if anything happens, I mean.”

  I gave him my best smile, which at the moment was a fairly weak smile.

  Crane ended up pulling his car into the garage so he and Wash could load it with the elderly man’s body. I mainly stood off to the side, watching as it happened. Touching a cold corpse? Not my thing, surprisingly. Then again, in this place, I found many things weren’t my thing. Spirits, for example. I’d be fine if I never had to deal with another spirit ever again. My life was actually more complete without them. I was not my dad’s daughter in that respect.

  I stood near the window in the living room, watching as they drove off. I knew it wouldn’t take them too much time, but still, any more time I had to spend with Bones while he was possessed was more time than I wanted to.

  Just think: right now, as I stood here with my arms crossed, Bones’s spirit was being eaten alive by whatever spirit was inside of him. His physical wounds might’ve been taken care of, bandaged and stitched, but the inner wounds? Even if we managed to expel the spirit and save Bones, would he be the same man he was before?

  I moved to the edge of the kitchen, leaning on the archway that separated it from the living room. I peered around at Bones, where he sat near the kitchen table. His eyes were open, but they did not look at me. It was as if he was alive, but no one was home. A vacant, blank stare that caused a shiver to inch down my spine.

  Seeing Bones like this hurt. He was mine. What good was I if I couldn’t protect him?

  I was so lost in my own mind, picturing what might happen to Bones if we were too late pulling the spirit out of him, that I neglected to realize the chain starting to slip around my neck. This time, I wasn’t able to stop it from falling off. This time, I was thrown into the otherworld in a flash, everything around me becoming hazy, their colors too saturated, in less than a blink.

  Shit.

  I stood in Bones’s house, but there was no Bones. No spirit before me. Nothing at all tied to the chairs in the kitchen. I was alone in the house, it seemed. Nothing around me but the off-ness of the otherworld.

  This place was definitely a place I wouldn’t miss, either. I couldn’t help but wonder if Crane found my dad’s journal, if there was some kind of clue as to how we could close off the veil and lock away the otherworld, if I’d still get sucked into it. Either way, it was worth a shot. Anything was better than sitting around waiting for another inexplicable gust of wind to bring me here.

  I meandered to the couch, tossing another look all around me. Not a single sound echoed in the house, not a spirit to be seen—not even the one with creepily long white hair that defied gravity itself. I was literally alone here, not that I’d complain. I’d rather be alone in the otherworld than stuck with a spirit who wanted to devour my soul and possess my body.

  Leaning forward, I set my elbows on my knees and ran my hands down my face. I was about to let out a sigh, but a masculine, eerily familiar voice shattered the silence around me, “I’m sorry. I’ve been trying to get your attention, and this is the only way I knew how to.”

  I froze, my hands still covering my eyes. That voice…I knew it. I knew it, even though I hadn’t heard it in years. Well, technically I’d heard it a few weeks back, when a spirit had possessed his corpse and brought it to me, but he’d sounded hollow, off, not at all like himself. Here? Now? He sounded just like him—full of life, confident in a strange, eccentric way.

  I was slow to lift my gaze, my hands falling between my knees as I met the face of the spirit hovering before me. He had only a tendril of mist for legs, not touching the ground, but above the waist, he looked exactly like my dad. I would’ve gotten up, but I was fairly certain my legs would give out, so I stayed put on the couch.

  My mouth opened, but no sound came out. Not even a croak of a word. I could say nothing as I stared at my dad’s slightly-balding head and green, tired eyes.

  “I knew your powers would awaken when you turned eighteen,” Phil went on, hovering three feet before me, right in the middle of the coffee table, as if he was intangible in every way, even in the otherworld. His torso wore an old, brown shirt, the kind of slightly-stained fabric you’d wear to the city fair. “That’s why I never called. I didn’t want you back here, not when you could see them. Not when you grew up and started to look more and more like her.”

  “Katrina,” I whispered. Finally, a word. It was better than stunned silence, right?

  I mean, this couldn’t be happening. The spirit before me couldn’t be my dad. Humans didn’t die and become spirits, or at least not too often. The Horseman, if he was ever human—because that fact remained questionable—had died in a horrible, horrific way. My dad? I never asked the hospital exactly how he died, mostly because I didn’t want to think about it.

  What if his last days were not peaceful? What if his last few moments on earth had been ones of sheer terror? God, I felt like an ass for not asking, for trying to convince myself I didn’t care.

  Phil’s head nodded slowly. “The spirits never really wanted me, or at least that’s what I thought during my time here. I found some friendlies, but…but I was blind to the truth.” His eyes were more intense than they’d ever been. “It’s all for you, Kat.”

  “I know,” I whispered, already knowing I was the most special snowflake to ever cross Tarry’s borders. That piece of information wasn’t up for debate. I’d known it for a while now. “You were the spirit at the cemetery.” As I said it, I already knew the truth. My dad was the one trying to get ahold of me, not some random spirit. Wash had pulled me out before I had the chance to see his face.

  It was my dad all along.

  Phil nodded yet again. “It was me, and at the house, I tried to send you a message, but…” He let out a sigh, though he did not hover himself nearer.

  And then something occurred to me. “How do I know you’re really my dad?” Yeah, for all I knew, this could be some kind of spirit trick. I didn’t know why a spirit would want to look like my dad, because my dad and I were never really close, but in this place, you never knew.

  His lips smiled, though I could tell the smile was pained. “Your friend Bones won you a pink stuffed bear during the fair one year, right before you went back to your mother’s. You never let him know how much you loved it, but you slept with it every night. You never admitted it out loud, of course, because you were a teenager and so over stuffed animals,” he took on a sarcastic tone, the same tone I’d given him when he’d asked me, all those years ago, if I wanted to take the bear back with me to mom’s.

  Tears prickled in my eyes, and I fought the wave of emotion threatening to overtake me. I would not lose myself, not here, not now. Not when I stood—or, rather, sat—face-to-face with my dad, who should be dead and not a spirit stuck in the otherworld.

  “I don’t understand,” I said, my voice cracking only once. “How are you here?”

  “Kat,” Phil spoke my name almost pleadingly, “you think you know the whole story, but y
ou don’t. You’re still missing a piece of the puzzle, the who.” He, apparently, was not going to answer my question regarding how he was here. “The spirits didn’t know where you were or how to bring you back. They are like animals, driven by instinct. To get you back here took planning.” He paused, his lips thinning, his head turning down somewhat, breaking the intense eye contact we shared. “She’s been watching you for your whole life. She’s the reason you are who you are.”

  I started to shake my head, to ask him what he was talking about, but he went on, not waiting for me to ask.

  “She’s the reason I’m stuck here, as a spirit,” Phil said, once more looking right at me. “She is more powerful than any witch in history. I never thought she’d still be alive, after all this time…but she is, and she already has her claws in you.” His words fell on me like an unwelcome hug; no matter how hard I tried to not focus on what he was saying, I was drawn in anyway. “Because you are her.”

  I am her.

  Really, there was only so many things a sentence like that could mean, and since I already knew who I looked like…I didn’t need him to fill in the rest. My skin felt cold, my palms clammy. Inside my chest, my heart threatened to burst.

  No. No, no, no. This could not be happening.

  “Katrina Van Tassel,” I whispered her name lightly, fearing if I spoke it any louder, the bitch herself would appear, “is still alive.” The other piece to the puzzle. The maestro to this haunted, chilling melody. The conductor on this crazy train of spirits and death.

  My dad looked grim. “She is.”

  “How?” It’d been hundreds of years since then. How in the world could she still be alive after all this time? Was there really magic so powerful in the world? I glanced down at my hands, my fingers tensed. Did magic that powerful run in my own veins, too?

  “There is no such thing as immortality, unless you are not human. Only spirits can remain unchanged through time. Even with the most powerful magic, there is no stopping the aging process,” Phil went on. “But the soul is eternal. She has taken host after host, waiting until the stars aligned. Practicing her spells until she finally got it right, until she sent a piece of herself into an unborn babe—until you, Kat.”

  I had a piece of Katrina Van Tassel in me?

  Fuck. How the hell could I get it out?

  “She wants her body back, and she will do whatever she can to claim it, even if it means killing you from the inside out.” Phil squeezed his eyes shut. “She came to me, moments before I died. She said…she said she’d get to you if it’s the last thing she did. If my death didn’t bring you back, she would’ve gone after Bones.”

  “Bones,” I whispered, having the sudden urge to return to the real world and make sure Bones was okay. None of this boded well for us.

  Phil gave me a disheartened smile. “She has spirits on her side. She’s promised them their fill. If she has her way, all of Sleepy Hollow will fall to her machinations. But, after all her careful planning, she’s missed something. You, kiddo, have already done what she couldn’t during her first life, even if she helped you do it.”

  “The Horseman,” I whispered, knowing that this morning was not the first morning I’d blacked out. I’d written down directions to Wash’s head during a blackout. Wait a second… “Does that mean—”

  “She’s testing the waters, testing your connection. You don’t have much time left. Bones is a distraction.” Phil hovered closer, a few inches, though he did not close the distance between us entirely. “You are her, therefore you are capable of everything she is. Her book of shadows?”

  “Is mine,” I finished, slowly getting to my feet. I stared at my dad for a few moments, hating that our lives had come to this. The bitch Katrina killed him just to get me back here, so she could take my body and frolic with Wash.

  Fuck that.

  Fuck that every which way.

  Phil nodded, and this time, when he smiled, it was a real, genuine thing. “That’s my girl. With some elbow grease and a little luck, you can defeat her once and for all.”

  “I’m not going to let Bones die for this,” I stated, my hands curling into fists at my sides. If Katrina sent a spirit Bones’s way to distract us all from the real problem, I could, theoretically at least, send the spirit back to her.

  There would be no more deaths in Sleepy Hollow because of me.

  “And you?” I asked, not knowing what else to say. If I could, I’d gladly help my dad, but at this stage, I didn’t know if there was anything I could do. He became a spirit because of Katrina, I knew. The bitch knew no semblance of courtesy. Not only did she have to kill him, but she had to make him miserable and wander the otherworld until the end of time.

  “There’s nothing you can do for me, I’m afraid.” Phil lifted a hand, reaching for me. When he tried to touch my shoulder, his hand went right through. He was much less tangible here than Wash was. “The only thing you can do is beat her at her own game.”

  “How?” The word came out pleading, desperate.

  Phil answered, “I know a place that would love to have her.” The otherworld; he meant the otherworld. “She has my journal, but you don’t need it. You, Kat, are a witch in your own right, thanks to the piece of her inside you. Her book of shadows is yours, but you also have your own. You don’t need my journal to do what you have to do.”

  My head was spinning, and I was about to ask him of Katrina, who she was in town, but just as I opened my mouth, the otherworld faded around me. I was thrown back into the real world, back in my body on earth. My vision was gone, and I stood clutching the archway between the kitchen and living room. Hot, wet tears fell from the corners of my eyes—tears of blood.

  I blinked rapidly, trying to overcome the blindness. Was that something that would ever go away, or was I destined to always go temporarily blind while readjusting to being back on earth? Bloody tears were not something I enjoyed.

  It took a few minutes, but my vision slowly returned. Before my eyesight was twenty-twenty, I knelt to the floor and felt around, finding the charm within a few moments. With the cold metal in my hands, I got back to my feet, replaying everything my dad had told me.

  My vision was fully back, but my head felt as if it was going to explode. Holding the charm as tightly as I could, I headed to the bathroom, bending over the sink to wash my face of the bloody tears.

  This thing with Bones was a distraction. Katrina needed to kill some time. Well, fuck her. I was going to save Bones and show her who’s boss. Hint: it wasn’t going to be her for much longer.

  There was a new witch in town, and her name was Kat fucking Aleson.

  Chapter Ten

  Crane was not happy when I told him everything that I learned while he and Wash were gone. Wash wasn’t happy either, but at least Wash kept quiet. Crane, on the other hand, went off on me.

  “If Katrina is still alive, you are in danger. We need to get you out of here—”

  We stood in the living room, away from Bones and the spirit possessing him. Wash had his arms crossed, a pensive but dour expression on his face, while Crane practically fumed behind his glasses. Me? I was having none of it.

  “No,” I said. “This was all for me. I’m not leaving town. I’m not going to run away. If Katrina wants me, she can try to get me—after I save Bones.” Damn, I sounded pretty sure of myself; if only I felt sure of myself, too. Bravado was easy to fake, clearly.

  Crane heaved a sigh. “Kat, I told you, I know no way of pulling the spirit out without harming him.”

  “My dad said I don’t need his journal,” I reminded him. “Katrina’s book of shadows is mine, but I also have my own.” Calling Katrina’s book of shadows was too risky—assuming it would even come for me. She’d know; just as I assumed she knew I had it when it popped up before me with a locator spell.

  If Katrina couldn’t do the spell on her own, clearly there was something about me. I was Katrina 2.0, and maybe I had a bit more power, even if I wasn’t trained from bir
th, like some witches were.

  “Okay,” Crane relented, glancing around and generally being a smartass, “then where is it? Where is this precious book of shadows that has all the answers to our problems? I don’t remember anything popping up besides hers, and that was probably only because she wanted to see if you could help her find his head.” He flicked a thumb to Wash, who then intensified his scowl.

  Wash did not like being brought up in the conversation, and he wasn’t talkative enough that we could ask him why that was.

  I stared at Crane, glaring, and Crane let out a sigh, his anger subsiding as he said, “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have let my emotions get the better of me. I am…worried, Kat. I’m worried about Brom, I’m worried about Katrina, but most of all I’m worried about you.” He stepped forward, reaching for me. His hand ran down my arm. “I only want what’s best for you. I want to protect you—and if Katrina is alive, as your father said, I’m afraid we’ll…” A pause as he struggled to find the right words to say. “I’m simply afraid.”

  It must’ve taken a lot for him to admit that, and I let my annoyance at his outburst subside. “I am, too,” I said. “But that doesn’t mean I’m going to run away. I’m here now. My dad died for this. I’m not going to run away from this place, from Katrina, or from any of you.” I glanced between Crane and Wash, wishing desperately that Bones was here too, that he wasn’t possessed. That I had my trifecta of men around me and we were all happy and safe.

  A woman can dream, right?

  “Now,” I added, “one of you can go watch Bones, and the other can stay with me.” I moved to the couch, the same couch I’d plopped down on in the otherworld. This time, my dad wasn’t here, hovering in the coffee table. This was the real world, and strangely the stakes felt so much higher. “I’m going to try calling my book of shadows.”

  Crane tore off his glasses, pinching the bridge of his nose before sighing. He started to turn to go to Bones, but I stopped him by calling out to him.