Waving locks brushed her shoulder as Lenore cocked her head, her violet eyes narrowing. “I suddenly feel the conversation has shifted away from foliage.”
His cheeks blooming a matching pink to the roses beside him, Edgar cast his stare to the dirt path beneath his feet. “My apologies, Miss. Caught in the moment, I lamented.”
“Please, do not apologize.” Lenore crossed to him, her flowing skirts shushing across the ground with each step. “By the spark in your eye I see that it is a topic you hold great passion for. We should never apologize for anything that invokes a response of true passion. On the other hand, perhaps I could offer a fresh perspective?”
At this close proximity, where he could see the flecks of silver swirling in the violet pools of her eyes and the swell of her cleavage with each breath, Edgar predicted he would agree to anything she required of him. “It would be my honor to hear it.” The words came out with a raspy edge. His mouth suddenly arid.
“If I were to drop dead on this spot right this moment, how would you remember me?” Lenore tipped her face up toward his. Her heart shaped lips stretching into a playful smile.
Trepidation threatened to clamp his throat shut, denying any possible answer from escaping. Swallowing hard, Edgar forced those bothersome doubts down and seized his fleeting moment of sanity. “I would remember you as a maiden of the rarest beauty; all light and smiles that no painting or sculpture could ever compare. That your violet eyes terrified my very heart, for I knew their color to represent the purest of magic as that is what I felt whenever I had the good fortune that they be cast my way. And, of course,” he grinned, pleased with himself for the rosy flush that ascended up her slender neck at his brazen words, “I would recall that you were an expert manipulator. At least when it came to your own father.”
“See? You have made my point for me!” The trill of her laugh would have made the sweetest of songbirds envious. “In death even our flaws are raised up on golden pedestals. They are remembered as delightfully charming in our absence. All that is left is the beauty of the memory.”
Lenore knew nothing of Edgar’s curse, yet the pure goodness that radiated from her had chased it away. As the truth of her message resonated through him, Edgar was struck by an awareness as real as the very breath in his lungs. This angelic beauty was the elixir to his particular ailment. For that, he would be her slave … forevermore.
9
Ridley
An opulent display of riches belonging to the reigning king of macabre was not to be found inside Poe Cottage. Instead, Ireland was pleasantly surprised to find a cozy nest that offered the serenity and comfort needed to allow a brilliant creative mind to wander. The hardwood floors appeared newly refinished and polished to a glossy sheen. The smell of fresh paint lingered in the air, undoubtedly from the impeccably maintained walls and trim work. The rooms were small, meant to meet needs without the excess of extravagance.
“Hello, hello!” A white-haired woman blew into the room like a sparking storm of energy. Her vibrant red and yellow scarf, which perfectly matched her bauble earrings, flapped behind her with each of her wide, exuberant strides. “Welcome to Poe Cottage!”
“You look like my Nana.” Ridley cocked his head to consider her, his voice flat and monotone. “Before she came back from the dead to tell me I used to spend too much time with the bathroom door locked.”
The woman—whose nametag read Lois—blinked rapidly. Her freshly glossed red lips parting, only to clamp back shut in a firm, disapproving line.
“Ha! Field trip day from the home!” Noah graced Lois with his most charming grin. His arm wound around Ridley’s neck in a gesture of brotherly affection that tightened into almost a headlock. “Ridley here has a problem with the rules of normal social conduct. You’ll have to excuse him.”
“No problem at all,” Lois dismissed with a light-hearted chuckle that, thankfully, broke the palpable tension. If she passed any judgment, her practiced mask of graceful neutrality gave no indication. “And what can I do for you today? Are you here for the tour?”
“For the tour,” Ireland parroted, her stare fixed on Ridley as he strode past Lois into the main living area like he’d been there a million times before.
Lois folded her hands in front of her, her practiced smile fixed. “Fantastic! We start promptly at the top of the hour.” Over the guide’s shoulder, Ireland watched Ridley yank the tennis racquet cover off … revealing a splitting axe beneath.
Beside her, Rip pressed the knuckles of his fist to his lips to suppress his shocked yelp of alarm. Ireland wanted to see his contained freak out and raise him a full-blown hissy fit, yet she fought to keep her expression neutral.
“We give any last minute stragglers until then before we begin,” Lois continued, seemingly oblivious to their plight. “In the meantime feel free to make yourself at home. We only ask that you respect the velvet ropes and remain behind them.”
“Respecting those ropes is our biggest concern right now!” Ireland exclaimed, her voice coming out a high-pitched octave that would make dogs flinch. With her foot tapping an anxious beat against the floor, she watched the certifiable lunatic—that shouldn’t be trusted with a stapler—flip the axe from one hand to the other.
“If you’ll excuse me I have a few matters to attend to until then.” Lois’s cordial façade faltered, their hodgepodge band of weirdoes having effectively used up all her niceness. Granting them a brief nod, she disappeared back down the hall.
Ireland’s fingers curled around the sleeve of Rip’s button-down shirt as she forcefully yanked him into whispering distance. “Follow her! Do not let her come back out here until we get the axe away from him!”
Rip flinched as if she’d slapped him, his hands rising in confusion. “What am I supposed to do? As a caretaker here she has full wandering rights!”
“You’re always grossing me out by bragging about what a ladies man you used to be. Now, you get back there and woo the crap out of her!”
Glancing in the direction Lois had disappeared, his nose crinkled in disgust. “She’s a bit old for my taste.”
“You’re like four hundred!” Ireland hissed. “Go!”
“Yes, ma’am.” Rip saluted, then pivoted on the ball of his foot to chase after the tour guide.
The moment she watched his scraggly grey hair disappear around the corner, Ireland spun in the direction of the far more alarming issue. Ridley.
Noah was squatted down between the darkly stained wood rocking chair and the sky blue painted fireplace with his forearms resting on his knees. “Ridley, you seem … really busy,” He chose his words carefully, so as not to upset Ridley who was shuffling around the room on his hands and knees, sporadically stopping to press his ear to the floor boards. “Maybe while you do … that … you could just slide over that axe?”
If Ridley heard him, he seemed far more interested in what the floorboards had to say.
Ireland pressed the back of her fingers to her lips, lightly drumming as she tried to come up with a plan. “Any idea what he’s doing?”
“Listening to the vital wisdom of the oak flooring?” Noah craned his neck her way; tension sharpened the edges of his smirk and deprived it of its usual cavalier authenticity.
Further conversation was cut off by Ridley leaping to his feet. Grasping the axe handle in a tight two-handed grip, he arched back, every inch of his well-muscled frame twitching in eager expectation.
“No, no, no!” Ireland and Noah chorused in urgent whispers.
Bounding for the interception, Noah swiped for the handle but caught only air. Putting his weight behind it, Ridley drove the axe down hard. Wood cracked. Splinters flew. The floor beneath their feet trembled at the impact.
Her eyes widened to softball size, all Ireland could do was shake her head. “No way did that just happen.”
“Fun time with destruction of property is over,” Noah muttered through his teeth. Stepping forward, he caught hold of the axe handle before Ridley co
uld let his second swing fly. “I’ll take that now, brother.”
Night had fallen in Ridley’s eyes. All light snuffed out by the heavy storm clouds of maddening mystery that had blown in. Desperation forced his stare not to Noah, but to Ireland, the only other person on the planet that could understand his plight.
“I have to know,” every pore of him pleaded. “Please?”
Ireland swallowed hard. She knew the desperation scrawled across his face … intimately. It stared back at her in the mirror daily. “Noah, let him go.”
Noah’s head whipped her way, tousled strands falling forward to frame his eyes. “This place is a historical landmark, and he’s reducing it to kindling. This is an act you want to support?”
“He’ll pay for the damages. Just … let him swing.”
Noah hesitated, his moral compass searching for true north. Filling his lungs with a deep, cleansing breath, he let go and stepped away. His shoulder bumped Ireland’s, his fingers automatically twining with hers, as the two watched Ridley unleash holy hell on the wood flooring.
“What in tarnation?” Lois exclaimed, darting back into the room with her lipstick smeared and her hair mussed.
Rip trailed her, held up by tucking his shirt back in. “I tell you, my dearest, there’s nothing of concern—”
His words came to the same abrupt halt as his body did with his toes teetering on the edge of the ever-growing hole in the floor.
“You’ve got lipstick on your neck, dude,” Noah offered in place of an explanation and raised his hand for a congratulatory fist bump.
Tipping his head in a paltry attempt to hide his triumphant smirk, Rip returned the bump and blew it up just as Noah had taught him.
“This is a piece of agricultural history!” Lois raged, her face morphing from red to purple.
“I understand that and promise we will make this right,” Ireland said in her most calm, even tone. Holding out one arm, she blocked the enraged tour guide’s advance. “But right now there is an emotionally unstable man wielding an axe and I need you to stay a good distance from it.”
“We just had that floor refinished!” Lois screamed, the tendons of her neck bulging her frustration.
“If it makes you feel any better, they did really quality work,” Noah offered, bending to pick up a chunk of wood Ridley had cast aside. “Look at that! Battered with an axe and it’s still shiny.”
“That does not make it better,” the miffed guide snapped, her nostrils flaring.
Shirt soaked through with sweat, Ridley finally paused. “You may want to stand back,” he panted to no one in particular, his chest rising and falling as he fought to reclaim his breath. Offering no further explanation, he hopped down waist-deep into the hole he’d made and immediately dropped to his knees. Like an industrious mole, he busied himself delving into the dirt. A cloud of dust billowed up around him, growing with each slung handful—until he encountered an ominous thunk.
“Th-there’s something buried down there,” Lois muttered, suddenly inching closer to Ireland’s side.
The earth itself seemed to answer her, shuddering beneath their feet. A low, animalistic groan seeped from the hole—followed by a slow, but steady, drumming beat that grew louder, louder, louder still.
“Any chance that’s the house settling?” Ireland asked, even though the prickling sensation along the back of her neck confirmed to the contrary.
“I have walked these floors a million times and have never heard anything like that before.” Leaning in, with deep creases etched between her brows, Lois stammered, “D-did it sound angry to you?”
“Been down there too long, my sweet flower.” While Ireland watched the words slip from Ridley’s lips, the low tone of the unearthly reverberation could in no way be mistaken for his own. A man possessed with purpose—or something more untoward—Ridley climbed from the hole, dropped to his belly, and shimmied what appeared to be a handmade coffin lid from the soil it had rested in for ages. A ghostly sigh seeped from the yawning cavern he unearthed.
Not one body in the room moved.
Not one blinked.
Silence seeped and swirled around them, giddily taunting them with the disclaimer its presence would be fleeting.
That same fickle silence was chased away by a rumble beneath their feet. A shift in the very structure of the house sent them all stumbling. Before the stunned onlookers could regain their footing, a yellow-haired creature exploded from the ground like a demented daisy. Dirt and rock showered the living room, bits of it catching in the matted hair that fell to the being’s waist.
“I-it’s a girl.” Lois gasped, taking in the ankle-length lace nightgown worn through with holes.
Those simple words snapped the ghoul’s head up. The whites of her eyes were stained black, glowing purple irises glaring from their core. Grey lips curled back to reveal rotted teeth. A demonic hiss quaked up from her narrow chest, shuddering the hole in her cheek were the flesh had rotted straight through. One of her eyelids was split, like a snake’s forked tongue. A flaw that gave each blink a flutter effect. An ear-piercing shriek was the only warning she gave before launching herself from her earthly prison. Her venomous glare locked on Lois.
Instinctively, Ireland shoved Lois behind her. Her hand rose to summon her sword. Experience had taught her it took a second for her weapons to respond, and that was one second she knew she didn’t have as the ghoul bent to charge.
“Get down!” Ireland screamed, her fingers curled into the fabric of Lois’s blouse and tossed her to the ground just as one cold, clammy arm slammed into her head hard enough to cause spots to dance in her vision.
Their salvation came in the form of the Hessian’s late arriving sword that burst through the front door, tempting the long-dead blonde with a glimpse of what she wanted most … freedom. She lumbered out with four sets of eyes staring after her in abject terror—Rip’s eyes rolled back as his curse claimed him.
“That was a scary bitch!” Ireland squawked, easily snagging the hilt of her sword as it winged a tight circle around her.
“So are you!” Noah hollered. Catching Rip’s snoring frame, he eased him to the ground. “Go after her!”
10
Edgar
“Tell me what you’ve learned of the Stourbridge Lion.” Edgar leaned back in his chair, his fingers steepled beneath his chin in an imitation of the posture his father often assumed.
“Great excitement is building around it!” Phillip, the file clerk that had recently been reassigned to Edgar’s service, practically bounced in his seat with excitement. “The first steam engine built in the United States is quite the ordeal. A new age is upon us and the general populous is beside itself in anticipation.”
“Excellent,” Edgar nodded. “With all that attention, we need our product on its maiden voyage. Contact our buyers along the route and find out if they would be willing to receive their tobacco order via a different distribution option. If any hesitate offer them a discount, only if they hesitate.”
Phillip pressed his lips together in a firm line, fighting off a grin that would have bordered on patronizing. “Very good, sir. Your father could not have commanded such a dealing better himself.”
Leaning forward, Edgar pressed his forearms to the edge of the desk. “Careful to speak such things about John Allen in this building,” he whispered. “It borders on blasphemy.”
“I’ll keep that in mind, Monsieur Poe,” the younger man said with a curt nod.
“Were there any further matters we needed to discuss?” A potent chill shivered down Edgar’s spine, a familiar affliction that hounded him whenever an ominous presence neared. Stretching his neck first one way, then the other, he attempted to ease the spasming muscles that betrayed him.
“There is one more small matter, sir,” Phillip said.
Leaning across Edgar’s desk, he grasped the sterling silver letter opener. Before Edgar could think to question it, Phillip seized his own tongue in a closed fist and plunged
the letter opener straight through it. Blood sprayed as he moved the blade up and down, sawing through tissue and raining fat droplets of splatter across the desk.
The moment the dull edged blade broke through the other side, Phillip slapped the still wriggling muscle down on Edgar’s desk next to his daily planner. A free flowing spigot of crimson gushed from the wound, pouring down the file clerk’s chin and dousing his shirt with gore. “Mith Lenow wanth meh tah reminn you of yahr lunth date.”
“How could I forget such a thing?” Edgar fought to keep his expression neutral, despite the twitch under his right eye and vomit rising in his throat.
“If there is nothing else, sir, I shall leave you to it.” Phillip rose with a bow, any traces of his momentary self-mutilation gone without a trace.
The door no sooner clicked shut behind Phillip than Douglas shimmered into being wearing a cat that ate the canary grin. “Not even a squeal? I feel I might be losing my touch, and that bothers me more than I care to admit, E-E-Edgar. Need I try harder?”
Time had not been kind to the specter. His otherworldly form had been ravaged by decomposition just as his flesh buried in the ground must have. Patches of grey skin had been lost to decay, revealing the skull or bone that lay beneath.
Edgar straightened the papers on his desk, breathing deeply to steady his shaking hands.
“Still ignoring me?” Douglas flopped down in the chair opposite him, his split and oozing lower lip protruding in a pout. “You cannot keep doing this, Edgar. I fear eventually my good nature will run out and things will get ugly for you.”
Checking the time on the pendulum clock that maintained its incessant chorus in the corner, Edgar rose from his chair. He paused only to brush the wrinkles from the front of his slacks before rounding the desk and striding out with his head held high.
Raven (Legends Saga Book 2) Page 7