Raven (Legends Saga Book 2) (7 page)

Blinking hard,
Edgar tried to free himself from what had to be a macabre hallucination. “What do you want from me?” His voice betrayed him by cracking, rising with the bubbling panic he could no longer contain.

A few of the nearby boys glanced his way, sizing him up with judgmental glares.

“What do we want? Well, let us take a moment to ponder that. There is that magic touch of yours that could give any of us a second chance to shimmy back into our meat suits and dance. That is, quite obviously, a hardy handshake we deeply covet. However, there is also the more … subtle gift of yours. Where, once you find yourself by the location of our demise, you can see us plain as day.” Douglas’s head dipped, allowing him to glare up at Edgar from under his lowered brow. Blood welled within the whites of his eyes, spilling over the lids in ruby torrents. “And
that
makes us want to play.”

Finding himself at sanity’s limit,
Edgar pushed himself off the wall. His loose glove fluttered to the ground at his feet as he sprinted across the schoolyard.

“Edgar?
Edgar Allen
! Where are you going?” one of the teachers called after him.

Edgar didn’t
pause to acknowledge him, but slammed into the gate and forced it open with fumbling hands. The heels of his shoes dug deep into the soil with each pounded stride.

Even
his own heaving breath huffing in his ears couldn’t drown out the chilling echo that pursued him. “See you soon, E-E-Edgar!”

5

Ridley

“By definition it means ‘female dog
,’ which is why calling someone that is so comical!” Rip gushed, facing the closed door before him.

Ireland cast a sideway glance to Noah, her expression dripping with judgment. “This is your doing. You get to have the
appropriate public conversation topics
talk with him.”

“I totally deserve that,” Noah admitted, reaching one arm out to knock again. “Peolte said nine a.m., right?”

Before his fist could meet the door for a second rap, it flung open wide. A stout, frazzled looking woman, whose caramel-skin was dotted with beads of sweat, grabbed his arm and yanked him into the apartment with an impressive amount of force.

“I’m so glad you’re here,” she fretted,
both of her quaking hands clinging to Noah’s wrist. “I’ve never seen him like this before! You must help!”

“
Uh … if you called for some kind of assistance, we aren’t it,” Noah stammered, his confused gaze drifting to the vacant, yet extremely expensive looking, fish tanks that lined both sides of the stark white hallway. “We’re here about a piece of artwork—Ireland?”

Ireland caught his hint, knew that to be her cue to thrust her tattooed arm forward for the question and answer portion of their visit. Unfortunately, the
perplexing matters of her own cursed existence couldn’t break through unexpected fog clouding her mind.

True darkness lurked within those walls. It batted its lashes
, curled one taloned finger, and beckoned her closer. Shuffling forward without an actual invitation, Ireland heard nothing but the seductive symphony of her racing heart thumping against her ribs. 

“It’s like stumbling into the nest of the Skymall core demographic,”
Noah muttered, taking in the white, leather, and chrome décor. His quippy comment cut off short as his gaze fell on his hypnotized sweetie.

Ireland could feel the heat of his stare boring into her back
and wanted to reassure him, but couldn’t tear herself from the magnetic pull tethered to her very core.

“Ireland?
” Noah ventured. “You okay? You’re not in need of that certain special piece of jewelry I’m holding, are you?” 

“
There’s no time!” the woman, Ireland assumed to be Lupé, insisted. Hooking her arm through Ireland’s, she herded her in the direction of the open French doors that led out onto the balcony. “He’s going to fall! You must help him!”

Feeling her skin was scorching beneath Lupé’s touch, Ireland shook herself free. There he stood, the beacon of darkness that had called to her. Perched atop the cement ledge that acted as the balcony rail, his stare cast ten stories straight down. Shocked gasps and whispered plans buzzed around her, annoying as a bothersome fly. Ireland swallowed hard and flicked her tongue over suddenly dry lips. Stepping out on to the balcony, the wind whipping her hair from her face, Ireland gaped in awe at …
Ridley
.

“A parade of fallen angels. Their sin? A simple step.”
His chin tipped toward her, allowing her no further acknowledgment than his perfectly carved profile. “I can see them all.”

“
Has he self-medicated in some fashion?” Rip asked, straddling the balcony threshold to maintain a safe distance from the potential jumper. “I once tried opiates and thought myself to be a barn owl.”

“No, sir,
” Lupé fretted, nervously wringing her hands. “He tried a friend’s homemade absinthe once. Made him think he was Spiderman and he got stuck up in the ceiling rafters for three hours. After that he swore he would never do anything like that again.”

“He’s not on drugs.” Th
ough the words slipped from Ireland’s lips, their deep gravel tremor belonged to another.  “He’s cursed.”

Ridley’s spine straightened in response. Crossing one leg over the other, he slowly turned their way.
This simple, yet dangerous move caused Lupé to clamp a hand over her terrified yelp. The man they had met mere hours ago was gone, robbed of his polished perfection. His onyx hair darted out in a disheveled mess. The peaches and cream pallor of his skin had drained ashen. A shadow of stubble had sprouted across his jawline and lip, sharpening his features and giving him an alluring edge of mystery.

“Gliding in on raven
’s wings, came the father of the notion that the divide between life and death is a vague one.” Even with the others pacing anxiously behind her, Ridley’s stare locked on Ireland alone. Clouds of emotion rolled into his eyes, swirling and churning in a deep storm blue. “He claimed we’re the same, he and I. Took me on a stroll into the horrors of his reality—now passed to me. All that we see—that we so desperately wish to be a dream—yet, the truth was there, waiting for me.” Ridley glanced back over his shoulder at the deadly plummet mere inches away. His brow knit together in deep, furrowed creases. “It prompted the question; would my leap of faith end in a rustle of feathers, as his did? Or would it be a free fall into that never-ending night?”

“Mr. Ridley, no!” Lupé
pleaded, her trembling hands reaching for him. “Please come down before you slip!”

“You’re sure it’s a curse? Like yours?” Noah ventured, his hand closing around
Lupé’s upper arm and guiding her back inside. Not that she blamed him. If Ridley’s monster had a blood lust like hers they all needed a football field of distance, immediately.

Ireland cocked her head, considering the specimen before her. His tattered, unbuttoned shirt flapped
open in the breeze, revealing a light smattering of hair across his well-defined pecs. “It calls to me,” she managed in a throaty rasp.

Noah filled his lungs and exhaled through slightly flared nostrils. “I’m gonna suppress the undeniable urge to be the dick boyfriend about that comment. Instead, I’m going to get the innocent bystanders out of the way
so your inner monster can slap the stupid out of his inner monster and get him off the ledge. Sound like a plan? Good. Go Team Horseman.”

Ushering
Lupé inside, Noah grabbed the back of Rip’s collar and steered him in as well. No sooner had the doors met behind her with a soft click than Ireland shifted the satchel slung over her shoulder, repositioning it in front of her.

Fighting to keep the paranormal gruffness in her voice as subdued as possible, Ireland unzipped the bag and fished out a corner of the heavy weave fabric of her cloak.
“I saw some seriously twisted things when it first happened to me: medieval torture devices being put to use, disemboweled friends, a trunk full of heads. All of it left me wishing a good brain bleaching was a feasible option. But you, sir, are fortunate enough to have something I didn’t.”  

She caught his gaze and held it. Her fingers stroked the fabric. Her breath coming slow and level as the first signs of her change began. The heightened tingles of sensation from the skin of her face pulling taut over bone.
Her vision sharpening to a point that made her thankful for the grey, overcast sky. Wetting her lips, she found them cold and clammy—the only clue she needed to
know
they had bloomed a deathly blue. 

“You have someone that can guide you through it.”

Ridley’s jaw fell slack, but not in fear. His chest swelled, each breath coming fast and urgent. One step forward and he landed with a
huff
right in front of her. His hand rose as if to stroke her cheek, yet hesitated and hovered there. Maintaining a veil of energy between them, he let the tips of his fingers trace over the scrolled veins that now decorated her porcelain skin like hand-woven lace. “A maiden of rare beauty that blesses me with the gift of her true face. Death seeping through silken pores, delicate and fatal as the petals of Night-Blooming Jasmine. The strangeness only adding to her exquisiteness.”

“So, h-have you heard the hoofbeats yet?” Even Ireland
heard how breathless the query sounded, but could do nothing to correct it. Somewhere, in the back of her mind, she knew she
should
take a step back and attempt to break this spell with a bit of much needed space. Regrettably, her legs were less than cooperative. “First time I heard them I thought I was going nuts.”

“Insanity is only achieved when the heart has been
truly
touched,” he murmured. A simple gesture that caused Ireland to wage a full-out war with herself not to become completely trans-fixed on the soft curve of his lips.

Tucking her cloak back into her bag,
she attempted to shake off her physical maladies in hopes of regaining a pinch of control.  “As far as I know, there’s only
one
Horseman and
one
Rip Van Winkle. I’m not too familiar with any other Washington Irving works.” Puffing out her cheeks, she exhaled through pursed lips. Forming coherent thoughts would be
so
much easier if he would stop looking at her like a prime-cut sirloin. “We may have to do some research to find out what infliction you’re going to wind up with.” 

Wordlessly, he shook his head. “We walked streets of graves, tipping our hats to the dead that failed to slumber. Never once along our trek did the man tell me his name.”
Bowing slightly toward her, Ridley hid his conspiratorial whisper behind the back of his hand. “He didn’t have to. I already knew.”

Losing the battle
to not to close the distance between them, Ireland leaned in. “Who was he?”

In place of an answer,
a single black raven landed on the ledge vacated by Ridley just moments before. Filling its narrow chest, it tipped its head and emitted one loan caw into the sky.

Ridley turned
an ear to the bird, his posture snapping pencil-straight, as if contemplating the perplexity of its declaration. When he met Ireland’s stare once more the emotion had been white-washed from his handsome face. Desire. Angst. Mystery. A fair amount of madness. All gone, leaving behind an empty vessel that blankly stated, “We have to go. She’s waiting.”

Without further explanation, Ridley ducked around her, bumping Ireland’s shoulder as he passed. Her gaze wandered back to the avian messenger that seemed to be studying her with matching interest. A possible answer
to this riddle teased at the tip of her tongue, luring the name to slip from her lips.

“Poe?” she muttered in a barely audible whisper.

The raven perched, and sat, and nothing more.  

6