Thanks for sticking with me, readers. The Christmas Season is a very busy time for me. Apologies for not updating sooner.
Moscow, Russia, 1999
She should be dead. They should all be dead.
Johanna's mind was spinning out of control at a rate that she had yet to catch up with. Not that she had the time. Johanna struggled to pull the weighted rubble off of herself as she lay in the cold mud. Jo wheezed for breath as smoke filled her lungs. Dozens of emotions were running through her body all at once; fear, regret, pain, anger, sorrow, confusion...
Johanna had just killed her own coven.
Through the pain and disorientation, Jo could hear someone calling her name.
"Here! I'm here." She tried to yell back, not even sure if the words managed to force themselves out of her mouth.
"Dear God—" The familiar Irish brogue was nearly unintelligible as Henry began throwing away the fallen pieces of rafters and shingles that had collapsed in on his wife. He pulled her frantically from the ruins to reveal an ash-stained, blood covered face. "Jo!" Henry held Johanna's head up as it lolled to the side, threatening to tug her away into unconsciousness. "What happened? You have to tell me what happened!"
"Mphn's kennn." Was all she managed to say at first. Oh. That was why she'd been so confused about speaking earlier. Johanna's jaw was broken. It would be a few moments before the healing began and she could explain what had happened.
Somewhere in the back of her mind, she didn't want to tell Henry what had befallen the coven because the answer was right in front of him. She'd killed them. All of them. Johanna had done what Henry could not. He'd let his emotional and personal ties to the members of the Tribe of Ankou cloud his duty. Henry been a member of the Tribe for his entire life; he'd been akin to a diplomat when Johanna had come to meet him in 1801 at the mere age of 19. She'd joined after their marriage two years later.
Henry left her to check on what Johanna knew were corpses. She could practically feel his pain as he went from one charred body to the next, frantically searching for any signs of life.
"Dead. They're all dead." Henry said, returning to her side as he ran a hand anxiously through his curly, brown hair. He began inspecting her wounds, gently taking her face in his hands as he turned it from side to side. Though his hands were shaking, Jo could tell that he was trying to keep it together for her sake. "Are you alright, Jo? Nothing permanent?"
When she could finally speak, Johanna gently took his hands from her face, saying sadly as an answer to both questions, "No." She winced as a few of her ribs popped back into place as he tried to lead her from the chaos, "Henry. Henry, I need to explain."
"Explain?"
"This had to be done."
Henry stopped abruptly, unmoving. His next words came as a near-whisper, "Are you telling me that you had something to do with this?"
Johanna spoke her next words almost without breathing. "I had everything to do with this." Her husband remained still, not bothering to look back at her. Johanna could feel the rage radiating off of him in waves. She braced herself. Not because she thought that Henry would hit her, he would never do that, but because she knew what was coming next.
"How?" He growled, eyes blazing as he turned abruptly and seized her by her shoulders.
"The full moon." The shining orb in question was the only light besides the remnants of a dying fire started by the anarchy that Johanna had created.
"Why?"
"You know why!" Johanna screamed, unable to keep her own rage contained. She shoved him away roughly, "How could you let them do this? How could you be a part of this?"
The fire was growing, spreading to the remnants of the foundations of the building as Johanna's powers fed the flames. The blue fire licked up the sides of the framed walls, slowly crackling their way in Henry's direction, as he was the reason for her rage. The smell of burnt flesh as the corpses were all consumed in fire filled her nostrils, making Johanna want to retch, but she kept her focus on her husband.
"Children, Henry. They were sacrificing children!" The flames reached Henry, circling around his feet like an anxious predator.
His face paled as he looked from the raging fire to his wife's face, "I didn't know."
In her disbelief, Johanna's fire lost its appetite and extinguished immediately with an otherworldly gust of wind. "You didn't know." She didn't know. Neither of them had known. Something akin to relief washed over her as she watched her broken husband try to find his bearings. Henry looked around the ruins, at his former companions, at the place he'd always known, and then to his wife.
Something inside of him had changed in those seconds. Johanna could see it. She knew what was coming next.
How could she have believed that Henry would knowingly sacrifice children for his coven? Questions roared through her like angry waves crashing against a rocky shore as Henry spoke his next words. She didn't hear them. Johanna saw his lips move, but her ears were deaf in that moment.
She didn't understand what Henry had said until his grey smoke had already curled its way around his ankles, billowing up around his body and consumed his form. When it cleared, Henry was gone and his words became clear.
"Your place is no longer with me."
"Open the trunk, Soldier Girl. Doppelganger here's bloody heavy." Johanna struggled to keep ahold of the corpse outside of Abbie's car.
"Why don't you just use your magic, Sabrina?" Jenny rolled her eyes sarcastically as she opened the trunk, continuing to look on as Jo heaved the body up and into the car.
"Sabrina?" Johanna said incredulously as she shoved his feet ungracefully into the car and slammed the door. "I take that as an insult." She turned on Jenny, "Magic always comes with a price."
"Ladies!" Abbie snapped from the doorway like an annoyed parent, "Ichabod's got something."
Both women stared each other in the eye, as if daring one another to make the first move. Johanna winked, taking Jenny off guard. "I accept apologies in cash." Before Jenny could whip out a witty retort, Jo was already inside of the house.
Ichabod was kneeling over several open books on the floor when Johanna walked over the threshold. Behind him was the bookcase he'd been thrown into not twenty minutes earlier. "I noticed this title when I was searching through the volumes earlier." Ichabod explained , gesturing to a battered copy of The Divine Comedy. In the margins of the page, several scribbles were nearly undecipherable. There was one section that was highlighted and impossible to miss.
Johanna snatched up the book and snapped it shut before Abbie could read the section aloud. "You've got a body rotting in your car, Mills." She gave Ichabod a shrug as he glared on, "Not exactly the best time for a lesson in literature."
"The information in that book could be of importance!" Ichabod said loudly, trying to snatch the book back.
Johanna stepped out of his reach, practically hopping out of the door and onto the porch. Abbie shook her head incredulously as she and Jenny followed the arguing pair, "You've got to be kidding me."
"Just wait." Jenny said, leaning against the threshold as she crossed her arms, her face the picture of amusement, "You should've seen her when she stole the grimoire. She ran all the way down the yellow brick road and straight to the mental institution." Her sister wore a confused expression.
Jo continued to tease Ichabod, sitting on the hood of the car wearing a grin as wide as the Cheshire Cat's.
Jenny clarified. "That woman is batshit crazy."
Abbie caught on to the contagious nostalgia of their win against the doppelganger. She teased her sister in a sing-song voice. "Takes one to know one." Jenny smiled innocently before shoving her sister off of the porch. "What? Were you two on the same bus to crazy town?"
"She was driving it." Jenny said simply as she fished out the keys to her car and headed to the driver's side.
"Oh, are we finally going? Have all of our priorities in order?" Johanna said sarcastically, climbing off of the hood of the car and dancing out of Ichabod's reach one last time before climbing into the back seat of the car.
Johanna's words resonated in Abbie. Priorities. Johanna's priority was revenge and Abbie wasn't about to forget that any time soon.
She and Ichabod would have to watch their backs…
If it was in her favor, Abbie was certain that Johanna would be the one twisting the blade.
"...those cries rose from among the twisted roots
through which the spirits of the damned were slinking
to hide from us. Therefore my Master said:
'If you break off a twig, what you will learn
will drive what you are thinking from your head.'Puzzled, I raised my hand a bit and slowly
broke off a branchlet from an enormous thorn:
and the great trunk of it cried: 'Why do you break me?'And after blood had darkened all the bowl
of the wound, it cried again: 'Why do you tear me?
Is there no pity left in any soul?"
From "Dante's Inferno" – Dante Alighieri
A haunted house. Ichabod and Abbie were truly in such a place. They'd set about rescuing Ms. Lena Gilbert, a socialite and billionaire when she'd gone missing. The concept of being a billionaire still baffled Ichabod. Abbie had prattled on about someone called Bill Gates and his enormous wealth when Ichabod had questioned how many billionaires existed. The ranks in which modern peoples put their values (love, money, property) astounded him.
Ichabod kept his arm around Ms. Gilbert, supporting her ill frame as Abbie raced about the room, trying to find an exit. The windows were locked tight, the door wouldn't budge, and there was a demonic woodland creature intent on killing them all.
Just another day in Sleepy Hollow.
This one was a little short, but be prepared, dear readers. Revelations will be made in the coming chapters...
- xoxo Vivienne-Devereaux