Raven (Legends Saga Book 2) (18 page)

Ireland’s
heavy lashes drew back down to the tops of her cheeks. Blinking hard, she attempted to chase away fatigue’s stronghold. “Maybe it’s the meds talking, but that made exactly no sense.” 

“
Perhaps it’s a Horseman thing?” Rip offered, scratching a hand over the back of his scruffy neck. “Although she’s never healed particularly fast before.”

“Healed fast?” Ireland rasped, her face a question mark. “She cored me like an apple.” 

“See, but that’s the thing …” Instead of attempting to explain, Noah used the push button to ease the head of Ireland’s bed just enough for her to see for herself. “You are a shish-kabob no more.”

“
Wha-? How is that possible
?” The shocking revelation flipped Ireland’s alert and alarmed switch. Franticly she riffled with the fabric of her gown, moving it this way and that in search of the wound that—by all laws of nature—
should
have still been there. Finding nothing but yoga-toned abs, which Ridley found quite impressive, her head snapped up. Her gaze darted around the room, from one of the men to the next, as she toed the line of full-blown hysterics. “It-it had to be the doctor! Only he wasn’t really a doctor, and
he knows what I am
. Did you see him? He injected me with—something. I don’t know! But we have to find him! I can bitch-slap him with the hilt of my sword until he talks, if that’s what it takes!”

Ridley hid his smirk behind his fist, happy to see someone else
in the group taking the role of the crazy one for a change. 

“
We
could
go after the guy that miraculously healed you,” Noah soothed, his tone calm and steady. Easing the tape free from her arm, he pulled out her I.V. port. “
Or
, we could make that step two after we stop the stab-happy dead chick that put you here in the first place and has since developed a taste for blood and violence. Personally, I’d rather send the mystery guy a fruit basket. But, ya know, your call. Either way, we need to get you out of here before the medical staff starts asking questions we can’t answer.”

More conversation followed as Noah eased Ireland to sitting and Rip went in search of her clothes. Unfortunately,
Ridley could only half-listen to their further exchange. From the dark corners of the room a spirit he had never encountered emerged. Its presence, and the depraved power emanating off of it, chilled him to the very marrow of his bones.

“
There is still time to pick our side, R-R-Ridley,” the freckle-faced ghoul stammered through blackened teeth. Matted hair, the color of a rotted tangerine, stabbed off his head like a wicked armor of horns. His attempt at a smile made gruesome by his severely dislocated jaw that swung loose as if on a rusted hinge. “Your part in this is could be huge. An army of loyal subjects could be yours to lead if you only listened to the line of people
dying
to meet you.”

Ridley’s eye twitched
at the grating cackle that resonated off the walls. His skin crawled as the shadows all around him elongated, writhing and thrashing into forms more demon than human. Inhaling a deep, shaky breath, he shut his eyes and tried to retreat into himself even as the cold, wisps of their claws raked over the skin on the back of his neck ...  

A soft, but firm, grip tightened around his
wrist, pulling him back from that dark precipice. His eyes snapped open to find Ireland staring back at him with iron-clad resolve. The yellow, flickering fluorescent lights overhead illuminated her like a poor-man’s archangel.

With her free hand she finished
thumbing the buttons closed on the flannel shirt Noah had loaned her. “We’re all leaving here,
together
,” she assured him. 

Breathing in her
gift of peaceful serenity, Ridley laced his fingers with hers. The compassion she showed solidified one nagging thought as truth:

W
herever this journey took them, he would be with her until the bitter end.

16

Edgar

“Dearest heart?” Edgar’s arms dangled over his purple face, slapping against the back of Lenore’s legs with each of her galloped strides. “Could we pause for a minute? Perhaps put me down and allow the blood to return to my head? My consciousness has waned thrice now and these moments of black are getting noticeably longer each time.”

The s
ticks and leaves that snapped beneath her feet acted as his only response.

Blinking hard in a paltry attempt to clear the black spots that
frolicked before his eyes, Edgar tried again. “Lenore, please,” he softly pleaded. “I brought you back, love. I will not flee or harm you. Your soul is an extension of my own and I would give my very life to protect it. Now, can we ple—”

His proclamation trailed off as oblivion claimed him once more.

Edgar had no way of knowing how much time had passed when the curtain of black finally rescinded. The face of his dark angel blurred in and out of focus before him, life’s second chance having altered her violet eyes to a bright ethereal purple. The whites that once enveloped them now stained the inky black of a moonless night. Concern creased her porcelain brow as she gazed down at him.

“Where are we?” Edgar eased himself to sitting, gripping the grass with both hands
when the world spun around him.

Lenore struggled to force out a rough stammer,
“T-t-tracks.” Grinding her teeth in frustration, she settled for jabbing a thumb over her left shoulder.

Overhead an owl hooted. Lenore’s entire body tensed, her head
whipping around for the culprit.

“
Be still,” he soothed, reaching for her. “Tis nothing more than a bird.”

Flinching from his hand,
Lenore sprang to her feet and forced a valley of distance between them.

Edgar eased himself
up onto still wobbly legs, his lips pressed in a firm line of confusion. Every cell of his being was singing out to touch her. To pull her body to his and rejoice in the sensation of touch that had momentarily been stripped from him. His own longing aside, her taut muscles and nervous twitches shouted that such behavior would not be well received.

“Lenore?”
the name of his angel slipped softly from his lips.

Yellow hair
, made wild by the wind, lashed against her face as she glanced his way.

“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 could
n’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. F
ire 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.