The Hidden

me, Vincent Drake. What was so goddamned important that you couldn’t just let us alone?”

“Oh, please,” he scoffed. “This isn’t about you. It’s about me. This is all about me. Do you know what it’s like to be immortal? To not have responsibilities. Or bills. No money problems, or wondering where your next meal is going to come from?” He inhaled deeply, closing his eyes for just a moment. “It’s fucking awesome. That’s what it is.”

He moved in close and put his face inches away from mine. “I hold the fate of mortals in my hands. Each and every time I come to Earth, I am responsible for their lives and their deaths.” He smiled at me. A crazy, beautiful smile. “I like that feeling. And I don’t want it to end. Simple as that.”

“But why would it end? Aren’t you guys the new teams, or whatever? Taking the place of the angels and demons?”

“We aren’t the original Revenants, you idiot. There haven’t been many of us, but there have been others. You get a certain amount of time to do your job, and then you get replaced by the next round of Shades. And those Shades just so happen to be here. Known as Nikolas Degenhart and Katrina Van Tassel, of the Sleepy Hollow Cemetery.”

I rubbed my eyelids. Trying to stuff all of this new information into my brain was making my head spin. “So … what? You did all of this because you’re going to lose your job?”

“It’s not that simple,” he exploded. “It’s never that simple. While you’re a Shade, you live forever, tied to one place. Shades are gatekeepers of sacred spaces. You know, cemeteries, burial grounds, ancient worship mounds?” I nodded, because that seemed to be what he wanted me to do. “When you become a Revenant, you live forever all over the world. When you stop being a Revenant, you move on.”

“Where do you go?”

“I don’t know. But wherever it is, you don’t come back. And that’s not going to be me.”

“How do you know which Revenants are going to move on?”

“No one knows. That’s the problem.”

“Then how did you know?” I asked.

His voice turned deceptively calm. “Because I’m the oldest. I’ve been around the longest. And because I had a little help.”

Sitting up, he took off the T-shirt he was wearing and exposed his chest. It was covered in a mass of black tattoos. They were small squiggly symbols, repeated over and over again, on top of one another. I couldn’t tell where one ended and the next began.

I couldn’t help it. I laughed. “You had help from a tattoo artist?”

He waited until my laughter died, then tossed his shirt aside. “Done yet?” There was something in his tone that told me to stop.

“Yes,” I said meekly.

“These are protection spells.” He pointed to one section. “They keep me hidden from the others. The shaman who did these knows what we are, and he told me what would happen in the Hollow. That it was time for two new Revenants, and I’d be the one moving on. I can’t let that happen.”

“Which is why you don’t want me to complete Caspian.”

Vincent nodded. “If you two aren’t completed, then the other two have to stay. There’s a balance to everything. If I can’t stop it, then I will delay it.”

“So how does Kristen play into all of this? How could you think she was Caspian’s other half?”

He looked annoyed with himself. “I don’t know how I got that one wrong. I did all the research on Caspian Vander-raised in West Virginia, moved to White Plains, his mother ran out on him when he was a little baby, he has the connection to Sleepy Hollow … blah, blah, blah. Maybe it was my preference for redheads clouding my judgment.”

“‘Connection to Sleepy Hollow’?” I gave him a confused look. “What do you mean by that?”

“His connection. It’s in his blood. Literally. He’s a descendant of Ichabod Crane.”

“A descendent of …? What?”

“The green eyes?” He gestured to his face. “You’ve read ‘The Legend of Sleepy Hollow,’ right? Ichabod Crane is described as having green eyes. The legend was true. He was a real person, and he had a bunch of kids. Caspian is one of his great-great-great-great-grandkids. Don’t quote me on that number of ‘great’s, though.”

Was it true? Could it be true? Caspian did have unusual green eyes, and he’d told me more than once about the pull he’d felt toward Sleepy Hollow. Was this another way we were connected? Me, with my love of the town and Washington Irving, and him through an actual bloodline tie?

What are the odds?

Vincent opened his mouth to say something, but the sound of a car pulling into the driveway interrupted him.

“Damn it.” He pointed at me. “You. Stay here. I mean it. I’m going to see who that is.”

I glanced over at the fireplace as Vincent got up and moved to the front door. There I spotted my opportunity-a half-burned log sticking out of the fire. When he turned his back, I saw my chance.

And I took it.

Chapter Twenty-five. MAKE IT RIGHT

The dominant spirit, however, that haunts this enchanted region, and seems to be commander-in-chief of all the powers of the air, is the apparition of a figure on horseback …

– “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow”

I didn’t stop to think. I just ran for the log, grabbed it, and headed straight for him. Vincent turned around a second too late, and I drove the hot end right into the top part of his chest-aiming for the section of tattoos that he’d said were his protection spells.

He screamed in outrage as his skin sizzled and split, the raw edges of the wound turning black with soot. A large red burn mark blossomed, and he looked down at it, shock written all over his face.

I held on tightly to the wood, barely even noticing that it was warm to the touch, and pointed it at him, brandishing it as the only weapon I had.

He took a step toward me, but the front door suddenly shuddered open, and the man in the white suit, the man who had been at the insane asylum and who had been watching me in the cemetery, stepped into the cabin.

“Grifyth!” he yelled.

Everything happened at once then, in a blur of motion that left me stunned, as the man tackled Vincent and they went flying past me. The man in the white suit shoved Vincent into the bathroom and slammed the door shut between them. Reaching for a kitchen chair, he wedged it up under the knob. It didn’t take long for the pounding on the other side to begin.

I glanced over at him. “Who are you, and what are you doing here?”

“Well, I was coming to rescue you,” he said in an amused voice. “But it looks like you were taking care of that yourself.”

He put out a hand and reached for me. “Come on. We’re leaving.”

Apparently I didn’t have a choice in the matter, because he was already hauling me behind him, and my legs followed.

“What’s going to happen with Vincent?” I said.

“He’s not going to be happy when he gets out, but we need to get you back to the other Revenants.” He directed me to a gray car sitting outside. We both got in.

“What’s your name?” I asked.