“Are you well, my flower?”
Tears welled in her eyes, washing away streaks of funeral powder as they fell. Her nostrils flared like a nervous colt, yet still she managed a brief nod.
As believable responses went, hers fell far from convincing. Even so, Edgar knew enough not to push the matter. He, too, had witnessed true horrors. They knew him by name and fed on his sanity.
Offering her the courtesy of space, he investigated their surroundings by craning his neck to see around the sporadic trees that peppered the field surrounding them. “We appear to be north of town, which is a very good thing. I had been saving money to buy us a home after we wed. After your … accident … I gathered it all. It is not much, however it will buy us a fresh start far from anyone that knows of what happened to you.”
She cast her gaze to the ground. The salt of her tears watering the earth.
“Lenore?”
Swallowing hard, she forced herself to meet his stare.
What kind of solace could one tortured soul offer another, but hope of a better tomorrow?
“You have done well,” he assured her, with a smile he knew didn’t reach his eyes. “You secured us a nice head start against those that may be searching for us. We shall continue to travel north until the tracks lead us to the next depot. If you are tired from—hauling me,” undoubtedly one of the oddest sentences he had ever said to a woman, “I could find us horses at a nearby farm.”
Unbridled panic widened her eyes, her breath coming shallow and ragged as she urgently flicked her head side to side.
Instinct urged him forward a step, his palms out to steady her. “Easy, my angel. No horses. I suppose after the carriage you would have a natural aversion. My apologies for suggesting it. Instead, we shall embark on this journey with the means of travel the Lord blessed us with; our own legs. When the tracks lead us to a station I will buy us two tickets to New York and our fresh start together. Come now, if we walk through the night we may be able to catch the first train of the morn.”
If his optimistic propaganda had influenced her at all, Edgar couldn’t tell. Lenore’s troubled frown persisted. The only thing he could think to do was to prove his resolve by trudging on toward his stated goal. He made it five paces, the last three with genuine concern she wouldn’t follow, when she broke her silence.
Her voice, the rough grate of sandpaper over metal, still caressed and enchanted him because it belonged to her. “E-Edgar? The dead walking … anguished spirits calling out … i-is this hell?”
Edgar’s head spun at the question, realization’s icy chill seeping through his veins. How had he missed it before? The spastic jerks of her head. The ceaseless grinding of her teeth. Those bulging manic eyes that scoured the landscape, seemingly transfixed on the unseen. He knew that look all too well, because he had worn it himself for years. Blame whispered his name as the villain before plunging its blade deep into his heart, finishing him with a vicious twist.
A gasp escaped his parted lips, the weight of his actions and their repercussions plunging him to the deepest depths of Dante’s inferno. With Lenore’s return he could no longer see or hear the ghouls that lingered … because he passed his cursed sight on to her.
17
Ridley
A city under siege. Fire hydrants ripped from their bases, spraying geysers of water into the smoke clouded sky. Cars overturned, their wheels still spinning like Hot Wheels cars. The wail of sirens in the distance drowned out by frantic voices calling for their loved ones. People running, jostling through the crowds in search of safety and answers. A pungent odor, like burning oil, stung Ireland’s nostrils, making her lungs ache with each breath.
“Where’s my cloak?” She turned to Noah to ask.
He slapped the side of her satchel, slung over his shoulder, in response.
“Good.” She nodded, gulping down her rising trepidation. Turns out shaking off a near death experience wasn’t nearly as easy as she thought it would be. “Keep it close. I don’t think tracking her down is going to be quite as hard as we thought.”
“One ghoul did all this?” Rip gasped, his bulging eyes scanning the destruction.
“That or Godzilla.” Noah’s mouth screwed to the side. Shifting the satchel in front of him, he fumbled with the buckle. “Maybe you should call on your weapons? Get them out of police impound, out of the hands of some punk kids, or wherever they landed? Just in case.”
Ireland puffed her cheeks and exhaled through pursed lips just as a fire truck and sheriff’s car went zipping by, their flashing lights and screaming sirens clearing them a path through the wayward bodies filling the street. “And that is why I can’t arm up. The mere sight of weapons in this crowd will start a riot.”
But imagine the fun, the Hessian tittered in the back of her mind.
“I’ve told you before, needlessly slaughtering innocent people is not my idea of a good time.” The day’s events had left Ireland so flustered her filter failed her, making her rebuttal audible.
“Who is she talking to?” Ridley winced, pulling away but keeping his pinkie hooked with hers.
Then why does your pulse race at the very idea of it, girl? You cannot lie to yourself forever, the beast soothed in a throaty growl.
“The Headless Horseman,” Rip stated in no uncertain terms. “He lives inside her.”
“And that’s why she goes all veiny,” Ridley’s free hand waved in front of his face as if drawing her markings, “and Day of the Dead?”
Wordlessly—because, really, what further explanation was there?—Rip and Noah both nodded.
“I’m not lying to myself.” A flush filled Ireland’s cheeks, her argument with the undead growing heated. “The only killer instinct in me is yours.”
“One final question,” Ridley held up one finger, then pressed it to his lips in contemplation. “Is that how crazy I look when the spirits start talking to me?”
Again the other two men nod, with more adamant enthusiasm this time.
Ridley’s chiseled features crumbled into a scowl. “Well that’s simply inexcusable. She looks like a raving lunatic.”
“What?” Ireland snapped. Shaking her head, she dismissed their words before they could even form them. “Never mind, we need to get moving. Follow the destruction to our Queen of the Damned before she burns New York to the ground.”
“I thought that was your title?” Falling into step behind his slightly manic gal, Noah snorted at his own joke. Her steps stopped short when she paused to shoot him a death glare over her shoulder. “But clearly I am mistaken. You are lovely.”
Ireland resumed her purposeful strides, dragging Ridley along behind her, unaware that Noah’s attention had been diverted.
“Ire, stop! There’s a boy!” Noah yelled, before throwing himself into the sea of bodies. He shoved people aside, dodging and weaving through the crowd, while clearing a quickly disappearing path that his friends took advantage of as they hustled to push after him. On the opposite side of the street, balanced on the curb, stood a young boy no more than six years old. Tears streamed down his soot-covered face as he screamed a shrill cry for this mother at the top of his lungs.
Noah took a knee beside him, his flaxen hair falling over his sweat-dampened forehead. “Hey, buddy. Are you lost?”
“Our car had an accident,” the little boy hiccupped, wiping his nose on a blood-covered sleeve. “I climbed out, b-but I can’t find my mommy.”
“What does she look like?” Ireland asked as she grabbed hold of a light pole and stepped up onto its concrete base for a better vantage point.
“She has brown hair and her name is Megan,” he answered, his saucer eyes glistening with a fresh wash of threatening tears.
“And what’s your name?” Noah asked, his gaze scanning the boy in a cursory inspection for where the blood could have come from.
“Cameron Michael,” the boy mumbled, his lower lip trembling.
“Well, Cameron, you are being very brave right now. M
y friends and I are going to do everything we can to get you back to your mom, okay?” Noah paused and waited for Cameron to nod. “But we also have to make sure you’re all right. Does anything hurt from the accident?”
“My arm,” Cameron squeaked and pushed his shirt sleeve up his forearm. A gash, about four inches long, sliced his skin in a lightning bolt shape.
“Here, use this to wrap the wound.” Rip shook a handkerchief free from his back pocket and offered it to Noah.
“Thanks,” Noah nodded in appreciation. “Help Ireland find Megan.”
“Have we given thought to the fact that his mother may not have made it out of the car?” Ridley whispered out of the corner of his mouth, his gaze scouring the crowd while his hand stayed locked with Ireland’s.
“No!” Ireland barked, then took a deep breath and attempted to soften her harsh tone. “After … everything … we need something good. So, she has to be okay.”
“Fair enough.” Ridley’s chin fell to his chest in a nod of acceptance meant for him alone. “In that case we need to know for sure.”
Without further explanation, Ridley retracted his hand from hers and stepped back out of arms distance. His eyes closed just as the swell of spastic jerks and twitches hit him. His brows knit in tight at the unspeakable horrors he had willingly handed himself over to … all to help Ireland.
Rip’s face brightened as if the last piece of a puzzle had materialized before him. “Ah, so he has been holding on to you because it is keeping the spirits at bay?”
“Yeah, he figured that little nuance out at the cottage,” Ireland said, turning her focus back to the crowd.
“Actually answers a lingering question I had, too!” Noah called without looking over. Cameron’s wound dressed, he made the boy smile by booping his nose.
“They are both noble men,” Rip mused, his index finger twirling the end of his beard. “I would not have thought so of Ridley, yet it is true. It really is quite fortunate that you committed yourself to one of them before meeting the other. What a predicament that could have been, attempting to decide between the two. Not that monogamy ever worked for me.” He punctuated his rambling with a wry huff.
Ireland wet her lips and stared at the concrete beneath her feet for a ten count. “I don’t ever want to talk about my love life with you. More than that, I don’t ever want to talk about your love life with you. ‘Kay?”
“Afraid you might learn a thing or two?” Rip mumbled under his breath as he rose up on tip-toe to search the crowd.
Ridley stumbled forward, seeking Ireland’s touch the second his eyes snapped open. “She’s not dead,” he panted, his entire body vibrating in fear. “I don’t know where she is, but she is alive.”
“All I needed to know.” Noah gathered Cameron in his arms and hauled him over his head to sit on his shoulder. “You see your mom, you shout. Okay, bud?”
“Let’s do this!” Cameron’s nose crinkled as his hand curled into a tiny fist.
Keeping a careful hold on his cargo, Noah eased out into the street. Ireland assumed his target to be the dead center of the road, where anyone on the block could see them.
They were nearing that spot when a frantic shriek rose up above the chaotic hum of mayhem, “Cameron! Cameron!”
Arms waved, belonging to a brunette woman fighting her way through the crowd.
A slow smile spread across Ireland’s face as Cameron jabbed a finger in his mother’s direction, wriggling in delight.
Noah removed him from his perch and happily handed him over to a very relieved Megan, who embraced her son first then latched on to Noah for a very grateful group hug. Her lips were forming the words thank you for about the millionth time when the ground shuddered beneath their feet. People stumbled, bracing themselves against strangers to keep their footing. Tremors rattled cars and building fixtures, knocking Ireland from her light pole. Ridley caught her and held her tight against his chest as the earth itself rolled in another ominous wave. To the north of them a mushroom cloud of smoke and debris exploded, setting off car alarms for miles around.
“We need to go,” Ireland said, her jaw clenched to the point of pain. “As calling cards go, Lenore seems to have found a pretty direct one.”
“I’ve found that subtlety is a lost art on the dead.” Ridley’s eyes flared as he fell in step beside her.
18
Ridley
“How can there be no trace of her?” Ireland turned in a half-circle, one hand combing through her hair in frustration. “She somehow sparks one tank at an LP filling station only to ignite a colossal domino effect of ground trembling booms, then—nothing. Doesn’t make sense.”
“Perhaps she got her anger under control?” Rip’s lips worked like a cow chewing cud. His beard bobbing with each rotation of his jaw. “I watched a fascinating documentary about a scientist that was inadvertently struck with a substance known as ‘gamma radiation.’ The result of which turned him into a reptilian colored ogre with horrible coping mechanisms. Only by calming himself could he revert back to his true form. It is possible the same type of technique worked for her.”
“Not a documentary, bud,” Noah corrected. His hands were balled in tight fists at his sides. His stare wandered up and down the empty street beside them where all other bodies seemed to have sought shelter. “And I don’t think we’re lucky enough that she just gave up and went back to her cozy little hole in the floor.”
“You seem tense, friend.” One corner of Ridley’s mouth curled in a sardonic grin. “Perhaps what you need is the touch of a good woman?” At the word ‘touch’ he raised Ireland’s hand to his face. Brushing the backs of her fingers across his cheek, he playfully wiggled his eyebrows.
Ireland extracted her hand and yanked it out of his reach. “Why? Why would you taunt him like that?”
“I’ve been trapped in a virtual hell for two days.” Ridley shrugged without an iota of regret and reached for her hand once more. “Genuine amusement is really the only excuse I have, and I think it’s a worthwhile one.”
“Go ahead and take his hand.” Noah jerked his chin in Ireland’s direction at her obvious hesitation to do just that. “Annoying as he is, at least he isn’t whimpering and wetting himself that way.”
“I never wet myself.” Ridley raised one long, slender finger in clarification. “The whimpering I will openly admit to.”
“Two men bickering over a deranged killer.” Rip bumped Ireland’s arm with his and huffed a wry laugh. “In my day we would drill a hole in your skull to release the demons instead of trying to court you.”
Ireland’s chin pulled back in indignation, her free palm raised skyward. “Hey!”
“Apologies,” he said, pressing his lips together in a thin line. “An occasional deranged killer.”
“Oh, much better,” Ireland dead panned. The rattle of a discarded plastic bag tumbling across the abandoned street behind her whipped her head around. Her lean muscles on full alert. “Something is off here. We checked every possible route from that last intersection where she tore down the lamppost and impaled the ice cream truck. And still no sign of her.”
“In her defense that grinning clown sign atop it was terrifying,” Rip interjected.
If she heard Rip’s barb she ignored him. Shaking her head, Ireland gnawed on her lower lip. “Maybe we should go back? See if there’s anything we missed?”
Noah stopped short and spun on his heel, a mischievous glint adding golden sparks to his hazel eyes. “There’s another way. Spirits want to whisper all sorts of nasty things in his ear.” He nodded in Ridley’s direction. “Turn him loose, see if he can scare us up any leads.”
Ridley stepped well inside Ireland’s personal bubble. Catching a lock of her hair, he gave a gentle tug before running two fingers down the length of it. “Anything to get my hands off her, huh? Tsk, tsk, tsk. Not a shred of confidence in the sacred bond of your relationship. What a pity.”
“You wanna keep that hand?” Ireland muttered, c
asting a pointed look from him to his wandering digits and back again.
Hooking his thumbs in his belt loops, Noah puffed his chest in full male bravado. “I have complete confidence in us and the fact that you are exactly the kind of d-bag she hates.”
Running his tongue over his teeth, Ridley made no attempts to hide the glee that crinkled the corners of his striking blue eyes. “And yet, she and I share a deeper, more tragically uniting bond than you two ever will. Seems that knowledge would sting a bit.”
Truth be told, their posturing barely pinged Ireland’s annoyance radar in light of everything else they were facing. There were far bigger issues at hand than boys and their delicate egos. That made it all the more surprising when their voices faded, as if tumbling down a long infinite tunnel, drowned out by the demonic cackle of her beast within.
In any previous transformation, Ireland found herself at the mercy of a rising wave of darkness that would eagerly consume her unless she clung to the steadfast buoys that kept the storming essence of the Hessian at bay.
This time was different.
The ground of sanity crumbled beneath her feet, sending her freefalling into the realms of madness. Her pulse drummed a hypnotic beat in her temples, hushing her to bite back the pain and be still as the beast ripped his way out. No time to cry out. No chance to stop it. The Hessian birthed forth in the tightening of her skin stretching taut over bone. Her lips ripened, plump berries ready to be plucked. Veins bulged, weaving intricate patterns that framed her eyes with a wicked twist. Metal winged around the bend, slicing the air with a foreboding whistle. Sunlight caught the blade, illuminating it with a halo of divinity. Turning her wrist to receive it, Ireland allowed the hilt to nestle into her waiting palm.
“What the—” Noah’s question cut off the second he glanced over and caught the full magnitude of their suddenly dire situation. His hand plunged into the front pocket of his jeans as he locked stares with Ridley. “Dude, step away from her. Now.”
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