Raven (Legends Saga Book 2) (28 page)

“Because I’m devilishly handsome and positively ooze charisma?
Or
, because I’m the only other cursed misfit you know?” Ridley shrugged, his lips twisting to the side. “I’m inclined to go with the first option.”

Ignoring his
wisecrack, Ireland kept her steely gaze locked on the silhouettes of Noah, Rip, and their spectral guide in front of her. “Can you tell if Lenore is close by? I’ve got a bad feeling I can’t shake.”

“Sorry, no
.” Ridley wiped at the beads of sweat on his brow with his forearm, caused by the stuffy air deep within the abandoned tunnel. “But that does bring up an imperative question. Do you have any idea how to stop Lenore? Death didn’t seem to take the first time she tried it out.”

Ireland
drew her chin to her shoulder, listening to a soft hum somewhere in the distance. “I plan to put the pointy end of this into her and repeat as necessary,” she said off-handedly, pushing down on the hilt to flip the tip of her sword up.

“Not too complex,
I like that part.” Ridley followed her stare, glancing behind them, his expression a question mark. “That said, do you think it will actually work?”

The hum grew unmistakably louder. Roaring in like an aircraft propeller.
“Not sure. That said, here comes plan b. Heads up.” Curling her hand around the back of his neck, Ireland shoved Ridley toward the ground.

“Wha-?”
he stammered, but didn’t fight her attempt to bend him in half.

Raising one hand, she caught her axe
mid-flight. “There you are! Were you stuck in that brick wall this whole time? Poor little guy!”

Ridley corrected his posture. His eyebrows disappeared into his hairline as he tried unsuccessfully to fend off a judgmental smirk.

“To clarify, I’ve never talked to my weapons before.” Ireland
sheepishly flipped her axe in her palm and returned it to the leather loop on her belt. “And now that I see how creepy it is I won’t be doing it again.”

Ridley’s lips moved, forming a response
that Ireland suddenly couldn’t decipher a syllable of over the gruff boom echoing through her mind.

Surround yourself with people and you
will
be betraye
d
, the Hessian hissed.

The severity of h
is tone seeped through her marrow like liquid Adamantium, solidifying her spine into impenetrable steel like a certain surely
X-Men
character.

“Hey, Ire?”

Jerking in surprise at Noah’s voice in her ear, Ireland spun and drew. The point of her blade landing mere centimeters from giving him a brutally close shave.

His hands dropped to his sides
in frustration, a wad of black fabric clutched in one fist. “Seriously? Again? I’m going to start taking this personally.”

“Sorry, r
eflex.” Ireland squinted to counter the sudden twitch beneath her right eye. Coppery warmth tainted the air. Blood, free flowing crimson, rushing, flowing, pulsating over the very walls around her. Recognizing it as a vision, Ireland sheathed her sword with a trembling hand.

Feel that, lass
?
the Horseman growledfrom his dark cavity within her
.
Death is coming, and the hand he requests for tonight’s promenade might be your own.

“What’s going on?” s
he gulped, searching for a tone that somewhat resembled normal.

Noah’s narrowed gaze scoured her face, catching ever
y one of her anxious tells as if they were glowing neon. “Young Rip said the exit up ahead will take us to where Lenore is hiding. He suggested you throw your cloak on and get ready.” His hand rose in offering. One edge of the heavy wool fabric slipped past his fingers, unfurling in sensual, curling waves that beckoned to the most sinister side of her character.

Her fingers itched to close around the
course wool, a hypnotic longing throbbing through her to lose herself in the tantalizing rush that came with fastening the cloak around her shoulders. For that very reason, she hesitated. She was acting like a junky in need of a fix, only this particular addiction was wasting no time spiraling out of control.

“Ireland?” Ridley stared hard at t
he vacant space beside him. Leaning away from it, his muscles seemed set on a hairpin trigger to bolt. “Your friend is back.”

“
The Horseman
? You can see him?” Ireland’s hand instinctively rose to her face, feeling for the telling protruding bones.

“Different friend,” he corrected, flinching away as if she’d tried to touch him. “Same panache for being unperturbed by the binding restrictions of death. Namely
, the incredibly pushy Eleanora. She wants me to give you a message. Which I will deliver so she doesn’t
requisition my body again
!” He shouted the last part of his proclamation over his shoulder for the benefit of an entity only he could see.

Ireland and Noah exchanged strikingly similar looks of apprehension. “What is she saying?”

“
A change in hue, a shift of light.” Ridley said each word in the broken cadence of someone reading back a transcript verbatim. “Enemies conspiring their deadly plight.

“A shift in light?”
Ireland repeated. Spinning in a slow circle, her brow furrowed. The change was subtle. So much so that she almost glossed over it. Yet the minute it registered she sucked in a shocked gasped. Unleashing the steel viper at her hip, it hissed free with venomous intent. “
The wrong Rip is glowing
! You were just with them, Noah. You didn’t think to mention that?”

Noah turned with a jerk
, his stare bouncing from Ireland to Rip and back again. “Okay, I never claimed to be the most observant person, but I
swear
that was not the case a minute ago.”

Ridley stepped closer, knitting their huddle in tight. “What were they talking about before he sent you over here?”

“Nothing important,” Noah shrugged, blinking rapidly in confusion. “Sleepy Hollow, mostly. The way it
used
to be.”

Looking more villainous than friend,
their
Rip peered over his hunched shoulder. Fast moving fronts of animosity and uncertainty collided in a storm cloud of emotion that ravaged the lines of his face. 

“The way it was when they first met the
Horseman
?” While Ireland posed her words as a question, she needed no confirmation. The air around them was charged with conspiracy, crackling with glee at the prospect of claiming one of their own out from under them.

She didn’t wait for his response. Her boots slapped the ground with determined strides, her heavy footfalls echoing
off the cavernous walls like an unseen army.

Young Rip turned at the sound of her trudges, his face a convincing mask of innocence. “You see how she comes with her weapon readied? That is the monster using her as his marionette. Think back to the girl she was when you first met. Would that once innocent soul have been so quick with the sword?”

Rip shook his head, struggling to clear his foggy head from the apparition’s trance. “The firsth time we met she whacked me with a Magwite. So, yeth, I bewieve had there been a sword handy she would have utiwized that as well.”

Blind rage flashed across Young Rip’s face that he
quickly squelched with a sharp twitch of his head. “Then the beast had already taken up residence within her! Either way is of little consequence. You
know
she has been slipping as of late, losing control of her monstrous tendencies. The very same beast that killed our dear friend Ichabod is chained within her, and you have seen with your own eyes that those chains are weakening!”

Flipping the hilt over the back of her hand, Ireland caught
it and readjusted her hold to bring the blade up alongside her face. Her other arm stretched out before her in a battle ready stance. “Funny, I don’t remember signing up for the celebrity roast. What’s the play here, Astro Rip? What are you after?”

Young Rip hooked a hand around the older man’s neck and pulled him closer in a conspiratorial embrace. “You—nay,
we
—failed Ichabod once before! Do not let his death be in vain by allowing her to claim even one more life!”

Crossing her back leg over her front in a cautious side-step, Ireland prowled around them in a slow, deliberate circle. “Rip, you know me. Don’t buy into the Hessian hate propaganda. Remember when I explained to you the modern day meaning of the term ‘dick?
’ Well, consider this guy exhibit A.”

Young Rip’s
jaw tightened as he watched his counterpart’s expression soften at the memory. Using more force than necessary, he yanked Rip forward and snaked his arm around his neck. The embroidered sleeve of his coat became a tight noose that streaked the older man’s gasping face with plumes of red and purple.

“I know the dreams
of that horrifying headless corpse hunched over Ichabod’s sprawled form haunt you,” he snarled against Rip’s ear, “as they do me.”

Rip’s watering eyes locked on Ireland, shouting
an unspoken plea that she answered with a resolute nod.

“We fought with all we had
.” Pressing his face to Rip’s cheek, Young Rip seemed oblivious to the tears that streaked the wheezing man’s face. “As if broken fence posts were any sort of weapon against hell’s favorite pet. Yet
she
claimed him. Stole his head while we were powerless to do anything except watch in abject horror!”

“He’s rewriting history.” Ducking her head
to catch his eye, Ireland purposely ignored the ranting essence and addressed Rip directly. “
You
guided me. For that I am so
very
appreciative, because I know I couldn’t have survived this without you. Please, don’t let him cloud the truth we worked so hard for.” 

“Enough of this!” Young Rip released his older counterpart, casting him into the circle of space between them.

His beard clinging to his sweat soaked skin, Rip eagerly filled his lungs by the gulp.

“I extended this
proposition to you only because we share blood. In my mind that made you my brother. However …” Young Rip turned to Ireland with a murderous gaze, the pupils of his eyes dilating to thick pits of tar hungry to consume. “I offered only as a courtesy. I have fulfilled the mission binding me to deliver you here—wherever this is. In exchange I have been granted corporeal form.” Throwing his arms out, he turned to address each of them one by one. “All can join me, or burn alongside her. The choice lies with each man.”

“Congrats on the new legs, Lieutenant Dan
.” Noah ducked his head, casually rubbing the back of his neck beneath his hairline. “But where the redhead goes, I follow.”

“
Me too.” Ridley let one shoulder rise and fall. “If for no other reason than the fantastic view.” 

Noah’s head lul
led to the side, shooting him a glare of annoyance. “Think you can agree with me in a way that
doesn’t
make me wanna punch you in the face?” 

“It’s doubtful,” Ridley admitted
, his face reading genuine apology.

“Have it your way!” Young Rip sneered. A geyser of black smoke festered beneath his feet, elevating him on
its ominous pedestal. “You
all
deserve to die by the very hand you clamor to kiss. Fortunately, I will grant mercy enough to spare you that fate!”

His arms r
ose with the swell of darkness. Hoisting. Coaxing. Encouraging it to new heights before his head tipped in Ireland’s direction, a lethal smile lacing across his face.

“How does that thing do against smoke?” The first traces of unease
snuck into Noah’s tone as he nodded at her sword.

“We’re about to find out!” Ireland barely got the words out
before man and mist arced back in a reptilian roll … and struck.

Throwing his shoulder in, Young Rip slammed into her mid-section, forcing the air from her lungs.
Her sword clanked to the ground, stolen from her grasp the moment her head cracked against the unyielding tile floor. Spots popped and swirled before her eyes, pain blooming at the base of her skull where her wound from Lenore reopened. Desperate to reclaim her breath, she forced air into her lungs only to choke on the dust cloud they had kicked up.

“Ireland! Take your cloak!” Noah’s cry came muffled and warbled, as
if he was shouting through water.

Young Rip’s full weight bore down against her. His face contorted with rage
, lips peeling back to expose rotted teeth set in a ravenous snarl. “
I know what you are
! I have seen your true face! You are the Mistress of Death, bringing despair to all the lives you touch! If you
truly
care for any of these men, lay down your life now and spare them all your shroud of misery!”

Wedging her forearms between them, Ireland strained with all she had. The tendons of her neck bulged, the veins of her face threatening to pop. Strength
, which could only be described as demonically charged, allowed the enraged being to press in harder still. Turning her face from the rancid breath assaulting her, Ireland caught a glimpse of Noah creeping in. Her cloak clutched firmly in his hand.