Special thanks go to CreepingMuse– recent discussions with her about this show and its characters bring all elements into focus and are more fun than should be allowed. Plus, her current Sleepy Hollow fic, She and He, is a rip-roaring great time and a deeply satisfying read. It is not to be missed, folks.

Heinrich

Abbie curls her legs up on the couch and opens the attachment from Jessica, an old roommate who now (conveniently) works forensics for the NYPD. Staring back at her is a face she's never seen before.

Huh.

She closes her laptop and rubs her eyes. She hasn't been sleeping enough lately. And maybe getting a mock-up off a photo of the skull was a bad idea. But after a slow sip of red wine from a small juice cup – she put the wine glasses on the top shelf when she moved in, had to stand on the counter to do it, but that just meant they'd always be too high to bother getting them down – she braces herself and opens her computer again.

"So great to hear from you! How's Luke? Still hot like fire? I know, I know… Anyway, this was fun! Had to guess on hair/eye/skin color, but you said he was a Hessian, right? German soldier from the Revolutionary War according to Wikipedia, so blond is a good bet. Blue eyes. Ruddy, not too pale skin. Looks a little like my brother…. Call me next time you're in the city, it's been way too long. Have fun with creepy Heinrich, J."

Ain't no way you look this good. Not a chance.

What the hell were you doing in the middle of the American Revolution? Did you think you could just slide in unnoticed? Accomplish your evil to-do list and gallop on out of there? Sneaky bastard. You don't think they had enough to worry about without you making it worse?

You're a real piece of work.

What about the rest of your biblical posse? Are they Hessians, too? Maybe Crane and I should take a quick side trip to Germany, check out where y'all came from. Or does each of you come from a different continent? Australia? South America? Is one of you African? Yeah, right. I'll bet my paycheck every last galloping one of you is white as toilet paper.

But how did it work? I don't get it. How is it you can even be beheaded, if you're supernatural? Pretty sure you're not an actual demon, not like Moloch. You're too… real. I mean, you have a skull – a damn-near unbreakable skull, but still – and at some point, there was some meat on it. A face – this face, give or take. Crane must have seen it when he sliced your head off. I'm sure you were grinning like an asshole. Hell, you'd just killed yet another guy, woo-hoo. But this one... Sure, as far as you were concerned you had sliced open some tired fighter with a sword, but this one was Crane. You remember Crane, don't you? Tall, brilliant, open hearted? A battle scarred revolutionary trying to make this world a better place? Oh no, you couldn't let him get away with that, could you? You couldn't let someone like him stay alive. Do you win extra points when you mow down the best and brightest, or aren't you that picky?

But tell me: the original body, the one that was born with this face, was it always yours? Or did you hijack poor Heinrich, just some guy trying to be the best international mercenary he could be? It's got to be that. Can't imagine anyone would volunteer for this grisly job. Nope, you must've hijacked him, derailed the poor fucker just like you derailed this whole town, not to mention my plans for Quantico. You show up and everything goes sideways. Did Heinrich die inside that body, or did he watch in horror as you used him to destroy life after short, meaningless life?

My God, is he still watching?

She drains the glass in one harsh mouthful.

Fuck.

Here's something else I don't get. There are four of you? And you're the death guy. You're the one who, what? Shows up when people are dying anyway? Or are going to die? Or you're just really damn good at killing people. Boy, you missed a couple of juicy centuries. I mean, Hiroshima? Two world wars, plus the extinction of native populations all over the planet. Countless local wars, disasters… The African slave trade, but you must've seen that back in the day. Bet you loved it. And there was just a typhoon, wiped out almost an entire country. But here you are, looking for your head when you could be gathering dying bodies. Priorities, man. It's not like you need your head to see, or hear, or load your rifle. Or make your sword really hot. How do you even do that?

And what about your pal with the black horse? Pestilence? How does that work, exactly? Does he run around like evil Santa, trying to get to every sick person in time, dropping disease bombs down chimneys and riding off to the next epidemic?

See, I've been reading up. Pretty lame how your jobs overlap. Must make for some bickering. I mean, does Pestilence get pissed when you kill a sick person? And what about Conquest and War? Really, you only need War, right? It's not like Conquest happens peacefully. You gotta update. Pestilence is still relevant, sure, but what about Car Accident? Drug Overdose? Environmental Catastrophe? Who gets to count those deaths? Seriously, get with the times, Heinrich.

Abbie tips her wine bottle into her glass, but nothing's left.

You've got one ugly mug, Heinrich. I thought it might help, you know, seeing your face. Maybe it did. Maybe it will. But right now, all I care about is that you killed Corbin. And Crane. Underneath all the biblical end-of-the-world horseshit, you're just a plain old murderer, just like all those murderers and rapists and thieves I've got locked up downtown. Supernatural or not, you're a killer. It's what you do.

But guess what: I catch killers. I stop them. And I am good. Learned from the best. I am going to stop you because that is what I do.

Samuel

The quiet bartender recognizes Ichabod with a faint grin. It is no surprise. He has been in town long enough, has encountered enough of the local denizens, that curious shock has given way in most cases to bemused familiarity. That guy, they murmur to each other, the one I told you about. And then, as often as not, he always wears the same thing, doesn't he?

Ichabod stops the bartender when he reaches for the amber whiskey he has ordered before. No thank you, sir, but could I trouble you for a Samuel Adams brew? The bartender shrugs and places one on the bar in front of him. Ichabod turns the bottle around in his long fingers so that the woefully inaccurate portrait of his old friend faces him.

It is a cruel arrangement that in order to talk with you, I must pay for this bitter swill.

No, your presence is no more corporeal now than moments ago, before I held this bottle. I could speak to your memory at any time. And yet, somehow this feels more… substantial.

Samuel, we have caught the horseman.

He takes an ill-advised sip and shudders.

We have captured him, have chained him below the city. Underground, like the dead thing he is. He rages against the chains, unable to speak. Unable even to growl. His silence is deafening.

He knows, Samuel. He is brimming with the knowledge of what's to come. So help me God, I will extract it. And when I finish this bottle of piss, I intend to research a method to do it.

Captain Irving and I chained him up when he weakened under artificial sunlight. Another marvelous suggestion from Miss Mills. She continues to amaze, although she has a stunningly high tolerance for historical inaccuracy. You would think, wouldn't you, that the curator of a museum dedicated to the past would want its material to hew as near to fact as possible. But no. Can you believe Revere is remembered as a dentist? A dentist! With his ragged grin? But the irony is ours to savor. You see, he engraved the key to the cypher in silver on the back of the horseman's teeth!

Ah, to return to my account. Once the horseman was well and truly detained, we stood in awe, we three – Lieutenant Mills, myself, and Captain Irving, who has seen the impossible with his own eyes and can no longer but fight with us. Our breath came fast and deep, as we stared into the void where the horseman's head should be. Then out of the silence came gunshots.

Lieutenant Mills shot six bullets with perfect aim into the horseman's heart. (She is honestly remarkable. You shared my admiration for the adept women with whom we toiled, as I recall. What power the lieutenant wields, and with such grace.) You see, the horseman had killed Miss Mills' mentor, a wise, paternal figure as described. Neither the captain nor I stirred, even after the rounds were spent. The horseman's chest seemed to absorb her bullets, as sand does rain. The proof shone: like his eerily persistent head, his body cannot be killed.

Captain Irving suggested that we might at least take him apart, piece by piece. Scatter the hellish morsels to the winds. Bury them far and wide. It is an excellent idea.

But not yet. He may indeed be contained, for now. I am not.

Samuel, I feel a rage brewing inside my heart so vast, so unimaginably gargantuan that I fear I may burst. And just as none could blame Miss Mills for her ultimately futile spray of ammunition, who can blame me for the hate that may soon erupt from within me? Who can judge the wrath of a man such as I, torn from an idyllic life of study and privilege and thrust by his own conscience and the twisted hand of fate into a war against veritable evil? Literally cut down in the prime of life by Death himself, only to be resurrected two hundred years hence, a man out of time, and charged as I am with such a weighty purpose? Who would dare condemn me for vengeance?

I will tear Death apart with my bare hands, I swear it.

Lieutenant Mills and I are called as witnesses. But Samuel, were we only to watch, perhaps eventually report, what good could that possibly do? The evil poised just beyond our sight would overflow this world like Noah's flood. And for our inaction, we would be complicit. No, we must not be mere witnesses. We must be heroes.