A/N: Hello everyone! There's only a few of you right now, but I already am floored by the positive responses I've gotten on the first two chapters, they warm this young author's heart. The beginning of this chapter was meant to be attached to the end of Chapter 2, but I felt like it was getting too long, so I cut it. I think I like it better this way.
Much love!
-Howl
CHAPTER 3: COVEN
It was four o'clock the next afternoon by the time either Witness found anything of use.
Scattered about the bookmarked pages of old texts, scrolls, and different copies of the Bible, were the empty Starbuck's cups from last night Abbie never bothered to throw away, and Chinese takeout boxes that she'd gotten delivered an hour before. Crane had refused to open his fortune cookie so Abbie took his, and enjoyed the second just as well as her first. Jenny had been with them earlier, but disappeared sometime between 2:00 and 3:00 PM (Abbie suspected it was to 'bother' Captain Irving again).
"Hey, listen to this," the Lieutenant declared, breaking the silence in the old archive.
Abbie sat perched on a bar stool behind the tall desk at the center of their office. Crane had camped out in his armchair beside the unlit fireplace. They'd moved much of the junk and dust bunnies out years ago, but it still held the same old Revolutionary charm (i.e. musty books and furniture from the Ghost of Centuries Past, as far as Abbie was concerned). She moved closer to Crane and pushed a thick book into his lap, pointing to an excerpt.
"Wraith." she read over his shoulder, "Popular mostly in European cultures and mythology; they are the remnants of violent souls pulled from a human body." The book's illustration depicted a frightening monster. It was the same creature that Mrs. Graham had described while her mind was still muddled from the adrenaline of almost being murdered. Before all of the Apocalypse/Horseman nonsense, this creature was once the image Abbie thought was synonymous with Death itself: a total Grim Reaper. Hood and everything, scythe not included (of course now she'd actually met Death: Abraham Van Brunt- former aristocrat and lady-killer, turned slave to Moloch- who neither carried a scythe or wore a cape).
"But this is the best part." Abbie said, finally grinning. She moved her finger and pointed to a new part of the excerpt. "Wraith kryptonyte? It's mistletoe." Kryptonyte was one of the few pop culture references Crane actually understood.
A shiver ran down Ichabod's spine as he stared into the creature's face. Underneath its black parchment hood was void. If a face had been there, he assumed it would be emaciated with age and decay. Beneath its portrait, three words were printed in a neat calligraphy. ANIMA QUI REPETIT, it read.
"Taker of souls," Ichabod muttered under his breath. His long pale finger reached out to graze the dark lettering. The page was cold under his touch- almost as if the Wraith itself had sucked all life from the harrowed pages. Around his hood, scraps of old fabric blew in the wind, remnants of the parchment cloak clasped around his neck. Crane corrected himself: Its neck. The creature was entirely gender-fluid, free of all distinctions between male and female. All possible classifications of who the soul had once belonged to were swept clean, left in the ground to rot with its body.
He quickly scanned the passage of text that continued below the drawing. The words outlined in fuller detail what Abbie had already told him, however one specific passage stuck out in his mind. He read it aloud to her.
"As a servant to those who wield their Blade of Dominion, horde of Wraith Daemons have been known to unwillingly pillage, reap and destroy some of the most fertile nations of peoples in Covenant history- most notably, the Sisterhood of the Radiant Heart in 1749."
"Radiant Heart?" Abbie repeated, her brow furrowing, "Where have I heard that name before?"
"From Katrina." Ichabod told her, his face full of something unreadable, "The Sisterhood of the Radiant Heart was her Coven."
Abbie blinked, not knowing what to do.
A moment passed before anything was said between the two Witnesses. Abbie was never fully comfortable while discussing Katrina, so she carefully directed the conversation towards the passage in Crane's lap.
"So wraiths can be made into servants?"
"So it would seem." his voice was still detached, his mind elsewhere. Thinking about Katrina, no doubt.
"Does that mean the ghost that attacked Elizabeth Graham was really sent there to kill her?"
That pulled Crane out of his stupor.
"Miss Mills," He turned in his armchair to look up at her, the arm that his chin had been resting on was suddenly brought down to the armrest with a thud. "I believe Elizabeth would be dead at his moment if it were not for the mistletoe protecting her home. Perhaps the one who possesses the Blade of Dominion wanted to murder her for some reason."
"Well it's not as if we don't know who sent them," she rolled her eyes. All this Anti-Apocalypse stuff was really tiring her out. She turned back to her stack of books, hoping to find solace in the chronicles of years gone by. "Moloch obviously needs Elizabeth and Philip dead for some reason. We just need to figure out why."
"Then I believe we owe the Grahams a visit."
Abbie grabbed her jacket from the tall coat rack, perching momentarily on tip-toes to reach the collar of her leather bomber. A grin tugged at the corner of Ichabod's mouth, once again entertained by the petiteness of his closest friend (or BFF, as Miss Mills sometimes called him). He began to button up the chest of his old overcoat- now more like a second skin, he never took the damn thing off- as Abbie reached his side, zipping up to protect herself from the cold.
"Ready?" She asked, taking a deep breath and looking up to meet his eyes. The sides of her mouth were upturned in what he supposed was meant to be a reassuring grin. It offered no relief, but he appreciated the sentiment.
"As I'll ever be, Lieutenant," he answered, expelling a large breath as he lifted his arm, gentlemanly escorting her outside.
She blushed at the formality and took a step to exit, but not before Jenny called them back, appearing from the bowels of the Archive.
"Wait you two!"
"What is it, Jenny?" Abbie asked, huddling in her jacket to shield herself from the nippy corridor.
"Look up." A smirk played on her sister's face, as both she and Crane glanced up at the same moment. Above them, the plump white berries of a mistletoe clipping wrapped in a red bow decorated the archway of the door.
Abbie made no attempt to move away from Crane, but rolled her eyes, hoping it distracted from the blush moving further up her face and across her chest. "It's not even Christmas," Abbie deflected.
"Never too early to start!"
"Stop stealing the evidence!" Abbie shouted, before ushering a flushed Crane out the door and slamming it behind them.
The ride to Douglas Valley was quiet. Other than the hum of an alternative rock station playing quietly from the speakers, there were no sounds inside the car. Abbie let the countryside run past them as she drove, the town quickly turning to forest. Douglas Valley was a relatively new subdivision of homes at the edge of Sleepy Hollow's village proper, to where many of the town's elderly had decided to relocate in the past six months.
It wasn't so much of a secluded neighborhood, but rather a small subcommunity inside Sleepy Hollow (people around town were of course gossiping about what the group of elderlies were doing cooped up inside the gated community. Some said they were reliving the 1970's, but after meeting the Grahams, that was one image Abbie did not want to have in her mind's eye). As she drove them through the tall gates, Abbie and Crane could see the small strip of shops owned by some of the residents: grocer, clothier, the smallest post office Abbie had ever seen, and of course, Graham Antiquities.
When Miss Mills finally turned her Jeep into the car park of the strip mall, Ichabod released the breath he hadn't realized he was holding. Even after three years, motor vehicles were still something he had trouble with, and the motion sickness didn't help. Abbie leapt from the car as he took his time unbuckling, going over the questions he hoped to ask Mr. Graham: What is the purpose of the mistletoe in your home? Are you the ranchers of the aforementioned vegetations? What say you to the Evils plaguing this town?
Abbie reached the door to the antique shop before Ichabod, and pushed the Open door widely ajar. The interior of the store was not unlike any pawn shop Abbie had been in before: various items ranging in purpose and price, all with a fair amount of dust and holes littering them. She stood alone in the center of the shop, facing the counter, when a bell above the front door chimed. Abbie looked over her shoulder to see Crane enter. His eyes widened: eidetic memory already taking in and sorting away the items lining Mr. Graham's shelves. If there was something fishy about the Grahams, this was probably the place to go looking for evidence.
Abbie wandered around the premises, occasionally picking up or touching the less delicate wares. She noticed that a majority of the items available to touch seemed to be from the past 40 years, but along the walls ran glass domes housing items of much more prestigious value. On closer inspection of a particularly old wax doll beneath its dome, Abbie was near enough to read the ident-tag attached to her cotton pinafore: Child's Wax Doll. Circa 1792. $1,500.
Underneath a display to the doll's left, was a crystal bowl full of spent musket shells. Patriot Musket Shell Casings. Hudson Valley, NY. Circa 1780. $120/shell,' it read. The shells had begun to crumble and rust with age, but appeared to be well looked after; In fact, many of the Revolutionary antiquities seemed to be in much better condition than any of the other pieces of merchandise in the entire shop.
"Hey Crane," Abbie called, getting his attention. He was across the room- staring at old scarves on a horizontal rack- when he turned around. She tapped at the glass protecting the bullets, directing his view towards them. The side of her mouth tugged with a sly smile, "These yours, old man?"
She didn't wait for his reply before she giggled, but moved out of the way so he could get a better look at them. "Very amusing, Lieutenant." he humored, rolling his eyes.
Abbie grinned while wandering over to the desk, where she rang the bell next to an old register. No one answered the call.
Crane wandered behind the counter and was now poking his head behind a curtain that probably lead to the back room.
"Lieutenant," he hailed. "I believe our search has come to an end."
Abbie strode over to Crane and looked past his bent shoulder, her boots clacking on the worn hardwood flooring of the shop. Through the doorway, Abbie could see nothing more than a few spare boxes and a circular table for employees to enjoy their lunch. Behind the table was a small kitchenette: sink, counter, and refrigerator, nothing fancy. There was a window in the corner of the room, right of the refrigerator, and it was casting a harsh afternoon shadow across a length of the space.
Sitting at the break table was Mr. Graham.
He was faced away from them, and when Abbie circled the room to get a better look at his face Crane remained stock still in the doorway.
Philip's salt and pepper hair seemed to have been scattered with much more grays than the last time Abbie had seen him. The wrinkles and bags beneath his circular glasses were hollowing his face, and along with the shadow covering his body, made the old man's features look skeletal.
It reminded Crane of the wraith's nonexistent- but emaciated- face that he had invented in his mind.
"Mr. Graham?" she called to him. He gave no reaction to their presence.
"Mr. Graham, it's Lieutenant Abbie Mills from the Sheriff's department." She clarified when he didn't respond, his glazed eyes lazy and unfocused, "I interviewed you about the creature that attacked your wife a few nights ago."
She moved to pull the Glock from the holster on her right hip. Using her free hand, Abbie touched his shoulder, hoping he would turn around.
Huge mistake.
Before she could react and pull away, Mr. Graham's arm propelled out to take Abbie's in a vice-like grip. She wrestled to get free, but as she did, the fiercely strong nails tugging into her skin broke flesh, and her eyes threatened to begin flooding as a shooting pain spread through her.
Ichabod rushed to her side instantly, and grabbed hold of Phillip's wrists, trying to free his partner. It was no use. Mr. Graham's face was alight with rage, his eyes no longer the pretty baby-blues Abbie had noticed two days ago: these were deranged, livid eyes. Surrounding the pupils, the color was no longer glazed, but instead the irises had turned an electric bloodshot red.
Simply trying to pull away from his aggressive hold turned futile, and as the blood pooling at Abbie's wrist grew more intense, Phillip's frenzy grew fiercer.
"Crane! On the back of my belt, the pepper spray! Use it!" Abbie shouted.
Crane pounced at her backside, searching for the Mace attached to her hip. When he found it at last, he freed it from behind her empty holster (gun now lost on the floor) and sprayed liberally in her attacker's face.
Mr. Graham screamed, detaching himself from Abbie in an ardent attempt to nurse his burning retinas. Abbie screamed as well: residual Mace from the dispersal had flown into the gushing wound on her arm, burning all the way to her bone.
Crane wrapped his arms around Abbie protectively and pulled her to him, moving them to the far wall of the room. They watched Phillip writhe on the floor until he wore himself out, sagging defeatedly in weak heap.
They were both shaking, Abbie more so. The adrenaline coursing through the Lieutenant made her feel as though she would explode. She cradled her wounded arm with her uninjured left hand. Crane's arms were still wrapped around her shoulder and waist as they attempted to catch their respective breaths- but flushed this way against him, Abbie couldn't help but revel in the tightness of his stomach, or the contours of his waist clearly defined underneath his flimsy cotton button-up.
Are you really thinking about this right now? You were just attacked! You're covered in blood! PRIORITIES!
"What's wrong with his eyes? Other than the Mace, I mean." Abbie asked, leaning forward to get a closer look at him. Phillip's nearly closed eyes were overflowing with tears, but the burning red of his irritated skin was clearly visible from his fetal position on the floor.
Ichabod retracted his arms from Abbie's waste as he stepped around her, and crouching beside Mr. Graham. Crane cocked his head to the side and reached out to touch the now limp (but aware) form. Mr. Graham moaned indecipherably.
"They took his soul. He is still lucid, but dying slowly- I don't think there is anything to cure it." Crane removed his hand from Phillip's shoulder, standing back up to face this partner.
Abbie's brow furrowed, "And how do you know this?"
"No mistletoe. If the wraiths had managed to attack Mr. Graham here, then that means there was nothing protecting him. Perhaps he didn't know how to protect himself."
Abbie nodded. "So he didn't know anything, after all."
"No, he didn't." said a voice from behind them.
In the doorway stood Mrs. Graham, with a clipping of mistletoe in her lapel.