Hollowed: Return to Sleepy Hollow, the Complete Duology

by Candace Wondrak

  I shut him up by stepping closer, wrapping an arm around his neck and pulling his tall frame down to mine, bringing my mouth to his. Not nearly as heated of a kiss as the ones we had on the bed, but this wasn’t about that. This was to show him that my feelings were real.

  At least, I hoped they were. I’d feel like a huge idiot if they weren’t.

  “Stop it,” I said, breaking the kiss. He’d been too shocked at my forwardness to do much else besides take the kiss. “Don’t compare yourself to Bones.” If Crane would stop and think, stop and take a quick look around, he’d realize that I wasn’t with Bones right now. I was with him, in his house. Bones had stormed out of here, so angry last night, and I…

  Damn it, I wasn’t happy with him. Such a hypocrite about the supernatural.

  My eyes fell to his abdomen, where a trail of dark hair ran from his belly button downward, disappearing beneath the hem of his boxers, which I could still see since his pants were not zipped up yet. “Now get dressed. There’s something we have to talk about.” I left him in the closet, heading downstairs.

  I was lost in the kitchen. I wanted to make coffee, to do something, but all I ended up doing was peeking in every single drawer and cabinet until Crane came down, effortlessly knowing what I wanted. He pulled out some coffee grains and started making it for me. He would, of course, have more tea.

  Once we were both seated on barstools, with our respective drinks on the counter before us, I heaved a giant breath and started to tell him my dream. Everything about it. I didn’t leave out a single detail, knowing Crane needed the whole story. All the while I wondered if he would think the same thing I did.

  Once I was finished, Crane processed everything I said. His brown hair was still a bit messy, and I resisted my urge to run my fingers through it. Crane was still freaked out about what happened between us, so I’d lay off, for now.

  “It does sound like he is trying to communicate with you,” Crane relented, his shoulders moving up and down in a sigh. “But he’s been a spirit for so long, I think he’s lost touch with how to communicate nicely.”

  I managed to chuckle. The sound drew Crane’s gaze, but I pretended not to notice. “He wasn’t always a spirit?”

  “He is one of the rarer cases,” Crane spoke, pausing to take a sip out of his mug. “A human who perished in an awful way, trapped in the otherworld, unfinished business keeping him around.”

  “I thought you said humans weren’t spirits?” Or was it that ghosts weren’t spirits? All the nitty-gritty shit; I wasn’t a fan of it, but when it came down to the Headless Horseman, I had to know.

  “I said ghosts were not real,” Crane said, a delicateness to his tone I didn’t appreciate. Like I was a newbie to all of this. I mean, I was, but I didn’t want to be treated like one. “Legend says the Headless Horseman was decapitated by a cannonball sometime during the Revolutionary War, and he’s in constant search of his head, which he just can’t seem to find.”

  Crane and I both realized it at the same time, our gazes locking. “You don’t think…”

  “He’s asking you to find his head,” he whispered. “Perhaps. I don’t think he’s ever asked someone before—or maybe he has, and they couldn’t understand, so he simply killed them and waited for someone else who would help him. He’s roamed the otherworld of Sleepy Hollow for centuries in search of it.”

  Helping the Headless Horseman find his head…why did I feel like that wasn’t all of it?

  I was about to voice my suspicions, but my phone rang. I dug it out of my pocket, finding that it was nearly dead. I recognized the number as Mike, my dad’s lawyer. Finally. Holding up a finger, I slid off the stool and answered it. “Mike? I’ve been trying to reach you for days—”

  “Yes,” Mike answered, “I’ve been…busy.” His voice sounded stilted, almost like a robot. That, or he really wasn’t a morning person. “I can meet with you in thirty minutes at my office. Does that work for you?”

  “Sure,” I said, wanting to get it over with as quickly as possible. I wasn’t sure how long the local hospital would hold my dad’s body, but I knew not forever. He gave me the address to his office and hung up.

  I met Crane’s stare, and Crane asked, “You have to go?”

  “My dad’s lawyer.”

  Nodding once, Crane got up and grabbed a set of keys. “I’ll drive you.”

  I went upstairs and got my boots. As we left his house, I couldn’t help but feel a nagging pinch in my gut. Not a good feeling. Something that told me this thing with the Headless Horseman wasn’t over, and that I was not only connected to Sleepy Hollow, Crane, and Bones, but also the headless man himself. And that said nothing about what happened to my dad…if a spirit had been the cause of his death, to bring me back here.

  I inhaled, exhaling slowly, drawing out the breath as we headed further into town.

  One thing at a time.

  Chapter Ten

  The lawyer’s office was in one of the shops on the main street of Sleepy Hollow. If you were to walk by it without knowing what it was, you’d never suspect it was where the town’s few lawyers set up shop. I waved goodbye to Crane, who reassured me that he was going to investigate the white-haired woman and the Headless Horseman. He also suggested I return to his house after the meeting, which I was slightly inclined to agree to, mostly because walking around out here, I had no idea when I was going to be thrown into the otherworld again.

  I headed into the office, greeted by a secretary who was on the phone. She saw me, pointed down the hall, her wordless way of telling me to go right in.

  The place was old, taken straight out of one of those cop movies. The walls had wooden pressboard on them, the lights dim and yellow. Mike’s office sat behind a closed door, the small glass square on the door frosted with his name in big, black letters.

  I knocked, finding the door creaked open. Sticking my head in, I found Mike sitting at a desk full of papers. The man wore a suit that had seen better days, and a tie that looked like it had some stains on it. He was an older man, maybe early sixties, one of the too-serious types. Not exactly the kind of lawyer I would’ve pegged for my dad.

  “Hi Mike, I’m Kat, Phil’s daughter.” I reached out a hand to shake his, but he only glanced up at me. He didn’t offer to shake, didn’t even get up. His dark eyes only flicked to the seat opposite him, so I simply sat down, feeling immensely and immediately awkward.

  Mike grunted as he got up, moving to close the door. Right. Privacy and all that. He lumbered back to his leather chair, moving as if he weighed five hundred pounds instead of the hundred and seventy-five he probably did. He moved slowly, deliberately, almost like he had to stop and think about what to do.

  Hmm. He was weird. Maybe that’s why my dad had him as his lawyer.

  I stared at Mike for a while, waiting for him to pull out a folder with my dad’s name on it, or something. I wasn’t sure what lawyers did, but I was fairly sure they weren’t supposed to just sit there and stare at you. Unless my breath smelled that bad? I hadn’t exactly had my morning routine today, since I woke up at Crane’s…

  “Uh,” I broke the silence, leaning forward, trying to see if one of the many papers on his desk was my dad’s will, which we had to go over. “Maybe we should start off with the will?” I suggested with a shrug, not wanting to push this guy’s buttons.

  For one, the buttons on his shirt and suit were probably at least two decades old. Secondly, the way he stared at me—one step down from outright glaring—made me a teeny, tiny bit uncomfortable.

  Okay, a lot uncomfortable.

  I met Mike’s eyes, and for a split, impossibly fast second, all I saw were the whites. But then I blinked again, and they were back to normal. I said nothing, reaching into my pocket to pull out my phone. Officially dead now, of course. Why would the battery have lasted just a few minutes longer?

  I slowly slid my phone back into my pocket, watching as Mike’s lips twisted into a frown. He opened his mouth, revealing teeth
that were far too yellow and old…teeth that appeared just a tad sharper than they should’ve been.

  Shit. This guy was possessed? I had to get out of here, now.

  Lurching to my feet, I turned toward the door, about to make a run for it, but I was no longer in the real world. When I turned, I turned right into the otherworld. My exit was blocked by a huge, lumbering figure who could tower over even the tallest of people.

  It was him. Of course it was him. Who else would it be? So tall, so wide, so fucking headless.

  He stood not even five feet from me, between me and my exit, and I watched his intimidating figure take a step closer to me.

  I glanced over my shoulder, finding Mike’s seat was empty. We were alone in this room, in the slightly off-colored otherworld. Just me and the Headless Horseman. Two buddies reuniting.

  His wide chest tilted somewhat, and I imagined him cocking his head at me, studying me in the same manner I studied him. What did he think of me, I wondered, just a frightened woman? Someone in over their head? Had he seen the original Katrina, and did he know I was her lookalike?

  He took a step towards me, and then another, and another. I found myself nearly tripping over my own feet as I stumbled back, my ass leaning on the table. Everything was just a bit hazy, and I hoped I wouldn’t get sent back into the real world blind again. Not while I was stuck with Mike and whatever spirit was inside of him.

  The Headless Horseman moved to stand between me and the chair I’d been sitting in, his body mere inches away from pinning me against the desk.

  “I…” I hated how weak my voice sounded. This man, this spirit, this giant-like creature, whatever he was, he made me nervous. And scared. And whatever other adjective I could use to describe the tumultuous feelings inside of me. “I know what you want.”

  His chest rose and fell with a single, deep breath, the gloved hands at his sides clenching, the sound of tightening leather filling up the silence of the room.

  “You want your head,” I added.

  He sluggishly lifted a hand, shoving a finger against my chest, nearly pushing me down on the desk with the amount of force he used. That would definitely bruise—or at least it would if this was the real world. I still was unsure of how most of this stuff worked. All of this was new to me, and still scarier than I wanted to admit.

  Dealing with the Headless Horseman…who would’ve imagined he was real, let alone truly haunting the old bridge in Sleepy Hollow?

  The finger left my chest, and he pointed at himself. Now that I knew what he was after, I wasn’t as confused as I was in my dream. Hell, I still had no idea how he’d been able to slip in my dreams to begin with. But just because I wasn’t as confused did not mean I wasn’t as frightened.

  This man…he could kill me with his pinky. He could heave a thunderous breath with his wide chest and knock me off my feet. I felt like a child standing in front of him, small and useless, weak and simply not enough.

  If I helped him, if I helped the Headless Horseman find his head, what would that do for me? Would he leave me alone? Would he let me be, or would he simply kill me afterward? Would he go on to terrorize Sleepy Hollow with his newfound head, or would he give up the hauntings? I wanted to ask him these things, desperately needing answers to them, but seeing as how he had no mouth, there were no lips to form the words I wanted to hear.

  “You want me to help you find your head,” I whispered, pushing myself off the side of the table. I might be cowering in my boots, but I was not going to act like it. No, I would suck it up and face down this legendary man and his headless figure, even if his headless form was something out of a fairy tale.

  I mean, no one was that large, were they? Tall people were usually lanky, kind of like Crane. But this guy…underneath his uniform, he had muscles for days. His figure, the way he steadily breathed in and out even without a head, was what helped make him so utterly terrifying.

  The hand pointing to himself dropped, and he must not have liked my taking a stand stance. The Headless Horseman stepped closer, his double-sided ax forming in his hands, non-corporeal and incomplete, as if the ax itself faded in and out of existence. My ass leaned against the desk behind me, and I felt his masculine form press against me. He was solid beneath his uniform, but I felt no warmth coming off him, no body heat.

  I froze as I watched him raise his ax. Was this it? Was he done with me? Was he through waiting for me to agree to help him finally end the centuries-long search for his head? I closed my eyes, not wanting to see it coming.

  Or maybe I should look.

  My eyes peeked open when I felt a rush of air near my head, but when I opened them, the world around me was no more. Or, rather, the world was black. I couldn’t see.

  I fell forward, falling on my knees as I tried to find the chair I’d been sitting in before all of this happened. I forced myself to blink over and over again, knowing that each second I wasted blind was another second that Mike could hop over his desk and kill me. Or do whatever the hell he wanted to me.

  My vision returned to me as I crawled up, pulling myself into the chair. I spun, breathing hard as tears of blood seeped from my eyes. As it turned out, I needn’t have worried about what Mike was going to do to me. You might be wondering why, or you might already know.

  Mike was dead, his chest torn apart, a thick, gory red line seeping out of his clothes, as if someone threw an ax right at him. His head hung back, his mouth open. His dark eyes were normal, no extra milky white parts to them. Mike was dead, no longer possessed, and the spirit who’d been inside him was thrown back to the otherworld…but it wouldn’t be for long. Who knew how long it would take for that spirit to return and find me again. What if it possessed Crane next? Or Bones?

  I was going to be sick.

  I wiped the bloody tears from my face, practically leaping out of the chair to run into the hall. I stumbled on my own feet until I rammed myself against the receptionist’s desk. She was still on the phone, but once saw me, she said, “Frank, I’m going to have to call you back.” And then she hung up, her stare meeting mine.

  “Call the police,” I said. I thought about saying there’s been a murder, but stopped short. While it was true, it was…well, the only person in the room with Mike while he’d been alive was me, and I really didn’t want to be put under investigation while I was here. Not that I had anything to hide, but…

  Shit. This made everything so much more complicated.

  As the receptionist got up, needing to see for herself just what I meant, I lumbered for one of the chairs in the hallway. A makeshift seating room for other clients while they waited. Mike would have no more clients anymore. What did that mean about my dad? His will? How long would it take to get a new lawyer? Or maybe I could just go in there and take it?

  The receptionist’s high-pitched scream echoed down the hall, and she ran out of Mike’s office, looking much paler than she did moments ago. I met her questioning eyes, saying nothing as I pointed to the phone.

  The cops. I needed the cops.

  In particular, one cop. I needed Bones, and I needed to convince him that I wasn’t crazy.

  Chapter Eleven

  The police clearly didn’t know what to make of it. The whole thing confused them, made one of them look a particularly bad kind of nauseous, and all the while I sat there in the hallway, until one of them hauled me in and took me to the station, where I sat in a white room, alone and waiting. I knew it was only a matter of time until Bones showed his face. He wouldn’t leave me in here for long. He’d hear about what happened at the lawyer’s place, what happened to the lawyer, and then he’d come rushing in, wanting to save the day. Wanting to save me.

  At least, I hoped so.

  As I sat there, staring at the metal table in front of me, the hard coolness of the chair beneath me chilling my back, I started to worry he wouldn’t. He wasn’t thrilled when he stormed out of Crane’s; what if he metaphorically washed his hands of me? What if Bones was finally, after all these
years, done with me? If this was the last straw…

  Just as I was thinking that depressing thought, the door to the interrogation room opened, and the man of the hour walked in, carrying a steaming cup of coffee, which he set in front of me before taking the seat opposite mine. Bones looked…tired. There weren’t dark bags beneath his eyes, but he looked exhausted all the same, blonde scruff on his chin, his hair flat as if he hadn’t yet washed it today.

  Still beyond sexy, but that was beside the point. I’d basically just witnessed a murder, of which I was probably the only suspect. Now was not the time to daydream about Bones. There’d be plenty of time for that later.

  “You want to tell me what happened in there?” Bones asked, his deep voice soothing, settling in my core, a calming warmth that made me instantly relax. “Because from what I hear, it’s not good.”

  Bones hadn’t been one of the first responders, but seeing as how that happened hours ago, he had plenty of time to get himself caught up. I went into Mike’s office, I left Mike’s office, Mike was dead. That’s it. Pretty simple.

  “Am I being arrested?” I asked, totally avoiding the question. I asked mainly because I didn’t want to be arrested…then again, when I came to this town to pack up my dad’s things, sell his house and arrange a funeral for him, I didn’t want to linger longer than I had to in Sleepy Hollow. Yet here I was, knee-deep in shit. Didn’t look like I’d be leaving this place any time soon.

  My heart ached in my chest when Bones’s blue gaze held my stare. A growing part of me didn’t want to leave town; it wanted to explore whatever strange feelings I had for him, and for Crane.

  Caught in a love triangle just like the original Katrina Van Tassel. My dad would be so proud.

  “No,” Bones said, leaning back in the chair. The dark fabric across his chest grew taut, and even though it was a button-down shirt, I could still see the outline of his muscles. “But you might be, depending on what happens. There is a dead body, Kat. We don’t take things like that lightly here.”