1CHAPTER FOUR

"It's actually pretty in here," Gemma said as they crossed a picturesque bridge over a stream inside the graveyard.

Rupert looked around and had to agree. It was pretty. In some ways Sleepy Hollow reminded him of Highgate Cemetery, or at least the Victorian West cemetery. which was lovely if occasionally vampire infested. "I'm just glad we decided to wait until daylight to scout the place out."

"No kidding. It's going to take forever for us to find the crypt," Ethan grumbled, eyeing Tod evilly.

Tod squinted at his directions. "I think it's this way."

They followed Tod downhill but it was soon clear they were going the wrong way. The powerful monuments to Victorian wealth in the form of huge mausoleums and obelisks gave way to simple headstones, rusty brown, chipped and fading into oblivion.

"This can't be right," Deirdre remarked, pausing, her hands on her hips.

"What's that building?" Gemma pointed to a stone church that sat among the crooked lines of brown and white stones that looked like teeth in need of work.

They jogged over to it. The sign read "The old Dutch church of Sleepy Hollow 1685."

"Okay, didn't Lily tell us about the church?" Ethan asked.

Rupert nodded, taking the directions they had scribbled on cocktail napkins from Tod who obviously wasn't doing a good job navigating. "We're in the Old Dutch Burying Grounds. This is the wrong section of cemetery...sort of the next cemetery over. But it's good we found it because she used it to give directions. We need to go that way."

"Great, back up the bloody hill," Ethan moaned.

They started climbing. Gemma paused in front of a brown, cracked stone that had a little angel head superimposed on wings at the top of it.

"Check this out." She pointed at it.

"That can't be right. We're looking for a mausoleum," Tod said, dismissively.

"No, it's not the Moundalexakis crypt obviously," Gemma snapped, not impressed with his snotty tone. "It's Eleanor Van Tassel Brush." Gemma squatted down. "Man, she nearly lived a hundred years. She was the model for Katrina Van Tassel in The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. I loved that story."

"That's nice. We're on mission, remember, Gemma?" Ethan snapped.

Gemma got up, her fist balled. Rupert half hoped she'd slug him. Ethan could use it, even if it wouldn't get them anywhere. She relaxed and marched past him. They hiked back into the more affluent Victorian portion of the cemetery. They passed tombs for Carnegie, Rockefeller and Chrysler before they finally found the Moundalexakis mausoleum. It was easily three stories high with a domed top, all of the whitest marble dotted with green moss.

"Damn, that's bigger than any flat I've ever lived in." Ethan leaned back, trying to take in the impressive structure's full impact.

"No kidding," Rupert said, thinking vampires would love the place, nice and roomy.

"Seems like a waste of money to me," Tod said, unimpressed. "At least it's right on the road. We should be able to find it tonight."

"I'm thinking, why wait? " Ethan went up to the cast iron crypt door.

"It's daylight," Tod argued.

"And the only signs of people we saw were like a kilometer away," Ethan replied, peering in the door's stained glass window. "We pull the door shut behind us, who'd know we were in there if we were quiet? Besides, I know Ripper is as nervous as an old woman about being here after dark."

Rupert scowled. "And you know why." He gazed out over the rolling hills dotted with granite, marble and limestone. The cemetery was probably a good hundred acres, an entire community of vampires or worse could be living here. Not that he expected that there was but it could happen.

"Do we want to try it now?" Deirdre asked.

"I say yes," Ethan said.

Rupert shrugged and pulled a kit out of his pocket, removing his lock picks. He made short work of the padlock. They went inside and looked at the stained glass stuck into the mausoleum's dome. Rupert wondered if it was Tiffany glass. He almost agreed with Tod. It was a lot of money to put into a resting place; solace for the living, he guessed.

"We didn't bring any crowbars or anything." Tod gestured at the marble slabs sealing in the coffins.

"I have a spell that can handle that," Ethan said.

"Let's try not to explode anything. Sound probably carries in these hills," Rupert said, trying not to reach for the stake he had hidden - point up - in his boot. The crypt looked unused but better safe than sorry.

Ethan chucked his shoulder. "Trust me. Just be ready to catch the slab."

Tod and Rupert took either edge of the slab, fingers digging into the cracks. Ethan chanted in Greek and the slab suddenly listed forward. The men caught it and lowered the heavy rock to the ground as silently as they could. The opening of the tomb added to the mustiness inside the mausoleum.

"We'll have to slide the coffin out. We should be able to do it," Ethan said.

It was harder than they thought it might be to pull the coffin from its resting spot, taking all five of them to wrestle it to the marble inlaid floor. The stained glass rained a splash of color down on the mahogany wood. They ringed around the casket, staring at it.

"Who opens it?" Deirdre asked, distaste written on her face.

In the excitement of getting their hands on the grimoire, none of them had thought much about the enormity of what they were about to do. Rupert knew he could do it. Watchers were required to disturb graves. Some of his earliest memories were tales of his parents' exploits and half of them started in a cemetery. Still, he really didn't want to open the coffin and see what lay inside since the poor woman had been sealed up back in the 1800's.

"It's a shame that the book has been forgotten for a hundred years inside of there." Tod pointed at the casket.

"So, does that mean you're opening it?" Gemma asked.

"Uh, no." Tod backed away, looking skittish. "What if it requires magic?"

"Ethan, this is your show," Rupert said, "you get the book."

Ethan's lips skinned back as Rupert leaned against the wall. "Thanks for nothing, Ripper."

Rupert ignored the insulting tone. He knew Ethan was far more a coward than he was. It would do him good to get his hands dirty. Rupert slid his foot up the wall so he could easily pull the stake should he be wrong about the casket being empty. Still, he didn't know how a vampire could get in and out of one sealed up in a wall.

Ethan undid the locks and pried up the lid. The room filled with a strange smell. Not rot, exactly, but something equally unpleasant and skin-crawling. Tod and Deirdre gagged, turning away from the desiccated corpse. Ethan slipped back outside and they stared after him, shocked, not sure if he was deserting them, throwing up or something else. He came back with some fat maple leaves, using them as rags to keep from having to directly touch the metal box resting within the rib cage of the woman. It must have been on top of her chest when she had been laid to rest. He lifted it out of its bony prison and set it on the floor.

He was green as he tried to pry open the box. "This is so gross."

As he got it open, Tod darted in and grabbed the leather-bound, tattered book. Rupert could practically feel the heat of Ethan's glare. He wasn't much happier with Tod having the book first.

"We have it," Tod murmured, looking like he didn't even realize he wasn't alone.

"Put the book down," Ethan said, putting the metal box back in the casket. "We need your help hoisting her back where she belongs."

"Who care about that?" Tod gave a dismissive wave to the coffin. "We have the book."

"We can't just leave a body on the ground." Rupert wanted to throttle the American.

"Especially not with my prints on the casket so put the fucking book down, you wanker, and help us shove her back in the hole," Ethan growled.

Tod reluctantly put the book aside and helped them seal up the casket once more. Ethan got to the book before Tod the second time, and, to Rupert's surprise, handed it to him for safe keeping.

"We can't take time to look at it here, too risky," Ethan said, further surprising Rupert. Since when had Ethan cared? Maybe it was handling the book. Rupert could feel the power thrumming through it and suddenly had the urge to open up the casket again and put the book right back where they had found it.

"Fine. I've got some other people who'll want to see it when we get the book back to my place," Tod said.

"You never mentioned others before." Ethan's eyes slotted.

Rupert tightened his grip on the book. He didn't like this. He didn't want to share the book. It was his now and he was only dimly aware of the oddness of that thought. It faded after he locked the book in the trunk of their rental car, as if distance from the book assuaged some of his possessiveness and rage. Still, it was a tense trip back into the city.