Conflicting Loyalties (Sequel to "Covens")
DJ Dubois
March 2015
Rating T (Teen)—Language, Dark Magic, Violence
Notes Part 1: All characters (except for Katherine Crane) have already appeared in the first two installments (Roundabout and Covens) in this fiction series….
Notes Part 2: The characters from Sleepy Hollow belong to FOX. Katherine Crane was created by Red Lightning. All other characters are mine and fictitious. Please send comments to dante0220 .
Prologue [Wabash Commune, NY—October 23, 1782]
The seasons conflicted with one another over the New York woods during that year. Much as with the Revolution scarring the landscape underneath itself, the conditions raged without equal. Intense cold chilled animals and denizens alike. Scorching summer heat baked them. Tremendous thunderstorms and rarely sighted tornadoes devastated the area….
…almost as if Natura was out of balance….
…as if one of its heroes was missing…that something or someone had knocked the balance off kilter….
…which had been done….
Katrina warily cast a watchful look over her shoulder down the path. Since leaving Frederick's manor house several months earlier, she'd managed to stay a step ahead of pursuit. She'd done her best to blend in with local villagers in several hamlets by means of concealment spells, disguises and simple subterfuge. She'd managed to make just enough in each place to sustain herself…
…herself and the small girl in the carriage….
"It will be all right soon. Thy father has friends close by!" she assured the child. She knew they'd come almost far enough through the woods from Eagle Plain to have reached the Wabash settlement and the sanctuary therein. She remembered the ones there who'd sided with Washington and Ichabod earlier in the war.
Around another bend in the road, Wabash center's granite walls came into view.
"There, Katherine! You see?" Katrina pushed the carriage at a sprinter's pace up the path. She'd concealed Ichabod from the coven's influence. In addition she'd left Jeremy with the Dixons at the church at the cost of a broken heart. Her eyes watered at the pain cutting through her heart. Despite the sudden heaviness in her lungs….
…she would not surrender this one—her precious daughter. Fate had forced them from their male companions…It would not claim Katherine as well if she could help it….
"HO! IDENTIFY THYSELF!" a tall elderly man bellowed down from the ramparts.
"Hail, Kind Sirrah! Ah'm Katrina Crane! Ah seek David Dubois! He an' mah husband fought together in the war!" Katrina called. "Ah need his aid!" She felt a dark chill settling over herself. "NAY!"
Face yer fate, Katrina van Tassel! Face yer crime, Traitor! A voice hissed from just inside the wood.
"Crane? Thou knowest Captain Ichabod Crane? Ah fought w' 'im too!" the sentry indicated. "Enter quickly! The mercantile ist on thy right!"
"Thank you!" Katrina called back while picking up her pace ever more. She wouldn't be taken this close to safety. A panicked glance over her shoulder made her eyes go wide.
A heavy grey mist began spilling out of the woods spewing hungrily toward her.
"Good Lord!" the sentry realized in fear. He froze for a split second before realizing what he needed to do. He grabbed a wooden horn and blew several deep notes into it.
The warning notes shattered the stillness on that midweek day alerting the populous of the looming threat from without.
In response to the assistance, Katrina's feet rushed her and Katherine faster up the path and into the settlement. She hustled onto the Common and looked about like a frightened deer with the wolves not far from her heels. She focused while casting a detection spell.
Two buildings down, a two story wooden structure cast a dark glow revealing its proprietor within….
She hustled toward the structure and reached the stairs.
From behind the post at the top of the stairs, a cloaked woman emerged into view cutting Katrina off from the store itself.
Three more cloaked figures surrounded Katrina and her daughter within seconds.
"Get away from me! I've done nothing!" Katrina denied.
"You will tell us where Ichabod Crane is! Then you and she will pay the price!" the woman on the stairs hissed. "Hold her!"
"Deborah, we must finish this!" one of her hooded companions reminded her. She cast a nervous eye toward the door and then toward the natives who were beginning to stir from their posts.
"Bah! Let the…." Deborah felt a dark chill coming from within the structure. "Banish her now!" She grabbed one of the other witches' hands.
The others joined hands and began chanting.
A loud thunderclap echoed overhead.
Behind Katrina, a set of crystal doors formed and then shattered allowing access to what seemed to be a withered forest under a darkened sky behind itself.
"GET THEE HENCE, TRAITOR!" Deborah commanded while pointing to the captured quarry.
Katrina felt the hungry pull from the maw. She couldn't resist it for long. She shoved the carriage toward the stairs. "DAVID, PROTECT ICHABOD'S CHILD!" Then she disappeared into the darkness and her imprisonment therein.
Katherine squalled in fright and pain. She could no longer sense her mother—only the threatening coven members surrounding her.
"Throw the baby in there too. There's no place for the bastard babe here," Deborah assessed cruelly. She pulled the carriage free from the stairs and pushed it toward the maw.
Katherine screamed again in fright as the cold invisible tentacles latched onto her carriage. The rapid pace sent her small heart beating fiercely. She wanted her mother and now. Just as she reached the dark hole however, a small cloud of mist enveloped her and sent her away from there and the intended prison.
The carriage however crashed through the portal, collapsing it with the impact.
The coven members spat on the ground in disgust. As one they turned to find the merchant considering them as well.
David Dubois' eyes glowed yellow in concert with the emerald scar on his right hand. He held a shaft ready for firing in his bow. "Identify yourselves! This be private property!"
"We art the Sisterhood of the Radiant Heart! Thou hast interfered w' the goddess' business, Fool!" Deborah motioned the other coven members back. "Ah care na' what your pedigree is!"
"You should, Hag," Dubois growled. "Wha' have you done w' that woman? SPEAKETH NOW!"
"Tell us what thou hast done w' the brat first, Accursed One," another of the coven demanded.
"Ah sent 'er to 'nother place. Ah know na' where but she's safe!" Dubois retorted harshly. "Leave 'fore this gits worse!"
"Aye!" Deborah concurred sarcastically before throwing a mystical burst bowling him over and out of view.
As he vanished from view, his willpower caved under the stress. The familiar crimson sheen dropped over his eyes as the anger triggered his transformation.
"Papa!" Jennifer Dubois exclaimed while rushing out of the store.
"Get thee back inside if thou knows what is good for thee!" Deborah ordered.
Hearing the dark snarl coming from the other side of the stairs, Jennifer shook her head. "Lady, I'd get lost if I were you." With her enhanced hearing, she could detect the elder Dubois' changed pulse and heart rate signifying that a certain change had indeed taken place.
The Child stalked back into the picture. His open left eye surveyed the situation tersely. His hands glowed with jet black energy. "Now Ah'm pissed! Wha' j'do w' Cranie's wife? WHA' TH' HELL? Ya made Cranie go poof, didn' ya? Washington wanna know where he went! Hell, AH WANNA KNOW!"
"We seek him as well, Demon Child. You did interfere," Deborah retorted sharply.
"Ya keep 'way from 'em or Ah'll teach ya!" he snapped at them.
Deborah beckoned the others back into a spell circle. "We shalt banish thee first, Creature!"
The Child remembered what this formation's purpose was…and the pain it led to. Before the chanting could start, he focused on his adversaries. He recalled the witches in Althanor and how they took his love in addition to scourging him within an inch of his life.
Anger surged within his breast.
He motioned with his hands calling forth telekinetic energies.
The coven floated into the air. Invisible vices pinned their arms against their sides and muzzled their mouths.
"Now Ah'm gettin' me some payback!" he snarled. "SING!" He bombarded the coven with dark fire making them squirm and scream against the energy gags. For two minutes he let this act play out. He glared at the villagers, the local sheriff and Brother William who watched the display in horror as the danse macabre continued.
"David, in God's name, stop this!" the minister demanded.
"Ah ain't BIG BRO, Stoopid! They hurt Cranie an' 'is wife! They need ta PAY!" the Dark One bellowed. "All ya do is talk, talk, talk!" He sent another surge of dark energy through the coven eliciting a big spasm from them.
"This isn't the answer either," Jennifer countered. "Please."
"We shall git rid of 'em. You have done your duty," the sheriff added. "Enough."
The Child curled his lip. He could sense the arrogance and malice within the supposed white witches in his grasp. He still craved vengeance for the crimes of the past. He wanted to exact that pound of flesh for his comrade in arms. Still he wasn't going to deal with the neighbors' whining either. He snapped his fingers letting them drop to the ground. "Now GIT!"
Deborah pulled herself slowly to her feet. Her limbs quivered from the icy cold onslaught. "You…will pay, Demon. You and those you love. You can not shelter Crane's spawn now."
"Na' smart, Sweets!" He grabbed onto her and vanished in a dark flash. Less than a minute later, he'd returned. He glared at the others with a snide grin on his face. "Ya'd better find yer Head Wench. Say hi to the Lichtiebitch fer me." Before any of them could react, he seized the other coven members and vanished with them as well.
"Who was in the basket?" Jennifer wondered as she examined the few remains of the devastated wicker basket.
"What did they do to that woman?" the sheriff queried. "Miss Dubois, hast thou seen those women before?"
"Nay, Sirrah, I have not seen 'em 'fore today. Captain Crane is a friend to this hamlet though," Jennifer declared. "From how the Child was carrying on, I'd say this was tied to him somehow. Someone needs to let General Washington know somehow."
The sheriff nodded. "Your sire can do that, Mistress. He took care of the issue. Ah wish the babe was here."
Jennifer sucked in a deep breath. She knew her stepparents would be concerned about the situation. Still she wondered what would have provoked the standoff like that. What did the Cranes do? Who was this child? Where did Papa send her? She glanced toward the woods. What did the Big Kid do with them?
Somehow she knew the situation wasn't about to resolve itself any time soon. Not soon at all…..