Sleepy Hollow: Children of the Revolution (18 page)

“Let us hope,” Willett had said.

Now, almost 239 years later, Crane finally held the cross in his hand. And based on what Whitcombe-Sears had said, his holding this cross that had been earmarked for him was, as Katrina had indicated by her urgent request for him to find it, the only way to stop Serilda from once again rising.

A roar from upstairs reminded him that he would not be preventing anything if he did not remove himself from the premises posthaste.

He felt a blast of heat as he mounted the staircase, and winced when he entered the main section of the library and saw that most of the bookcases were consumed by massive flames.

There were many things that Ichabod Crane believed in that had been proven false over the last few subjective years. When he enlisted in the Regular Army, he believed that the colonists were upstarts who needed to be taught a lesson. When he interrogated the prisoner Arthur Bernard under orders from Colonel Tarleton, he believed that daemons and monsters were the stuff of superstitious legend that had no place in an enlightened society—a belief shattered when Tarleton revealed himself to be such a daemon right after he murdered Bernard. When the Horseman’s broad axe mortally wounded Crane, he believed that he was dead.

He also believed that his wife was not a witch and that he and Katrina had no children.

All those beliefs were shattered in due course, and so many more had been demolished since his unexpected resurrection that he scarcely knew why he chose to believe in anything.

But one thing he had held on to was his scholar’s certainty that the one thing that separated humanity from the beasts of the field was the accumulation of knowledge.

And so to see so much knowledge go up in flames was the latest in a series of heartbreaking occurrences.
He had been a history professor before his patriotism got the better of him and he left Oxford to enlist, thus setting him inexorably on the path that led to him standing in a burning building almost three centuries after his birth.

The sound of the Klaxons used by police and fire vehicles broke him out of his reverie. He looked around, trying in vain to ascertain a way out of the library. He faced a wall of flame that served as an effective barricade to the front entrance. Even the aisle was alight, the mutilated remains of the two officers now also burning.

Recalling that there was a metal door visible at the far end of the corridor that also adjoined the staircase and the exhibit hall, Crane went back the way he came.

But just as he approached the large doorway, the massive wooden door that was propped open suddenly whirled around and slammed shut.

Another of Crane’s beliefs that had been destroyed was the surety that doors did not close without a human hand or a mechanism acting upon it.

An unearthly voice echoed over the flames and the ever-louder Klaxons
. You will not be permitted to escape, Ichabod Crane. Like the fool who ran this library, your time is over
.

Defiantly, Crane looked up, shaking a fist in the air. “My time has been ‘over’ on many occasions, yet I am still here! I have survived many battles on this
plane and the next! I have imprisoned Death! Do not imagine, then, that I am helpless before your sorcery!”

Even as he bellowed, a portion of the balcony at the front end of the library started to visibly buckle, its collapse imminent.

Turning, and trying to ignore the tickle in his throat, Crane grabbed for the metal pull-handle on the wooden door that had been magically shut, then pulled his hand away quickly. It was white-hot to the touch. Crane wasn’t sure if the heat came from the fire or the eldritch machinations of Serilda’s follower, and it ultimately didn’t matter.

The Klaxons had steadied in their volume, meaning they were as close as they could be. Distantly, Crane could make out the sounds of water rushing, and he assumed that the fire brigade were beginning their work.

However, the tickle in his throat was building to a full-on cough. Glancing around, he noticed that, while most of the accoutrements of the structure’s former function as a church had been removed, the lectern was still present. It was a simple wooden podium. A quick examination revealed that it was in two parts, with a short upper portion that latched on to the much longer lower portion. Crane assumed the top part was there to allow for taller ministers, and its ability to be removed to accommodate the shorter ones.

Either way, it was the best weapon Crane had
available. As he unlatched the top portion, Crane was extremely grateful that this hadn’t been a Catholic house of worship. The lecterns in those churches tended toward the ornate, and taking off a piece of that while in a burning building would likely have been impossible.

The door that had slammed looked as though it was made of oak, so Crane didn’t even bother trying that. Instead, he slowly worked his way along the side wall, keeping his eyes firmly on the roaring flames, and periodically pausing to cough so violently, he felt it in his ribs, until he reached a window.

Again, he was grateful that this place wasn’t Catholic originally. Crane would have hated to have damaged a stained glass window.

Hefting the lectern portion over his head, he then swung the large block of wood around his body and threw it at the window, throwing himself to the floor as he did so.

The glass shattered over his head, though he barely heard that noise over the flames, the Klaxons, and the water, which, he hoped, was at least tamping down the flames on
some
part of the structure. As soon as the lectern went through the window, the flames were drawn to the outside. Crane felt the heat on his head and hair.

His first night in the twenty-first century, Crane had found himself, following Sheriff Corbin’s murder, surrounded by lights of many colors that flickered
and awful Klaxons, and dozens of men—and women, which had surprised him at the time—in uniform. The assault on his senses was overwhelming, and it was the most frightening experience of Crane’s life. Given what he had seen during the war, that was not a light claim, but a true one, nonetheless.

Tonight, as he stumbled toward Chestnut Street after climbing out of the window that he’d broken, that selfsame sight of vehicles belonging to the police and the fire brigade, the Klaxons, and the people in uniform was the most welcoming sight he could imagine.

Even more welcome was the voice that cried out, “Crane!”

More coughs spasmed Crane’s body, preventing him from answering Lieutenant Mills directly, but she came to him and guided him the rest of the way toward a third type of vehicle that he hadn’t noticed at first: an ambulance.

As she led him over, Crane, still coughing, reached into the space between his shirt and his chest and pulled out Whitcombe-Sears’s
grimoire
. “Guard this,” he managed to get out between coughs.

“You got it,” Mills said, trusting him unconditionally. Grateful, Crane allowed himself to be put in the hands of one of the medical technicians.

JANUARY 2014

ABBIE MILLS WAS
finishing her third cup of coffee when she pulled into the parking garage that serviced the Westchester Supreme and County Court on Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard in White Plains. On the one hand, she resented that testifying in the Ippolito case was cutting into her ability to sleep in. The last forty-eight hours had included eight hours of driving, two crappy nights’ sleep, and yet another Crane crisis, complete with violence, magic, death, and history all rolled into one insane package. Worse, two of the deaths in question were Officers Drosopoulos and Han, two good people who deserved better than to be carved to bits by one of Serilda’s coven.

On the other hand, she really relished the idea of doing something so banal as testifying in a criminal
trial. It reminded her of when she used to be a cop rather than a Witness.

Not that she wasn’t a cop, still, but she did so little casework lately, it was starting to frustrate her. Sure, there wasn’t much paperwork involved in helping Crane avert the apocalypse, but there also wasn’t much police work.

The Abbie Mills who arrested Johnny Ippolito eighteen months ago would have dreaded testifying in the resultant trial. However, the present-day Abbie Mills, who had spent the last several months being attacked by witches, golems, demons, animated trees, and one of the Horsemen of the Apocalypse, was seriously looking forward to the repetitive tedium of a cross-examination under oath.

When she went into the courthouse from the garage, she saw Phil Czierniewski waiting for her in the hallway. The tall, gangly lawyer was pacing like an expectant father, the fluorescent lights reflecting off his bald pate. As soon as he saw Abbie, he stopped, faced her, and clapped his hands the way he did.

Frowning, she asked, “Why aren’t you in the courtroom?”

“Judge Olesen had a family thing, so we’re not starting until noon.”

Abbie rolled her eyes. “Y’know, Phil, we have this amazing piece of technology called a cell phone. I know you know about it, ’cause you’ve been using
it to crawl up my butt about this testimony for the last week.”

“I know, but—”

“Do you know how much I wanted to sleep in today?”

Phil waved his hands back and forth in front of his face. “
If
you’ll let me get a word in?”

Putting her hands on her hips, Abbie just stared at the prosecutor.

“I didn’t call you because Ippolito wants to make a deal.”

“You have
got
to be kidding me.
Now
he wants to make a deal?”

Phil pointed a bony finger at her. “Specifically, he wants to make a deal with
you
. Says he’s got something for one of your current cases.”

Abbie’s arms dropped to her sides. “Excuse me?”

“That’s what he said.” Phil shrugged. “What’s the big deal?”

“I’ve only got one case right now, and there’s no
way
Ippolito’s involved in it.” She shook her head. “Least I hope not. All right, where is he?”

“With his lawyer in one of the meeting rooms. Just waiting for you.” Phil turned and started to lope down the hallway.

“Hang on, I am
not
doing this without more coffee.” She went to the vending machine that was just down the hall and inserted a dollar bill, which provided her with a tiny cup filled with some of the worst coffee she’d ever had in her life.

Once the coffee was obtained and she’d sipped enough of the liquid cardboard that it wouldn’t spill as she endeavored to keep up with Phil’s longer gait, they soon reached their destination.

The meeting room was one of several set aside in the courthouse for occasions such as this: lawyer consultation, deal making, witness prep, and so on. A rectangular metal desk sat in the middle of the room, with six uncomfortable metal chairs around it, two on each long side and one each at the shorter sides. The walls were all industrial brickwork painted a sickly off-white.

Johnny Ippolito was in his prison oranges practically bouncing in his chair. Like Phil, he was bald, but unlike Phil—who’d shaved his monk’s fringe to go for the fully smooth-headed look—Ippolito had the lamest of lame comb-overs.

Next to him was his ambulance-chaser lawyer David Petersen, a short, mousy guy in an Armani suit. The only thing Abbie disliked about baseball season was seeing his mug on the cheesy ads that he ran on local stations like SNY, which broadcast Mets games.

“Good, good, good, y’here.” Ippolito indicated the chair opposite him. “Have a seat, Lieutenant, I got somethin’ for ya.”

Abbie sat in the indicated chair, trying not to squirm as it began to do its usual number on her back. She placed the coffee on the table. Phil took the seat next to her.

“Phil tells me that you’ve got something relating to my current case?”

“That’s—”

Petersen put a hand on Ippolito’s shoulder. “Now hold on a moment, please, John. Lieutenant Mills, Mr. Czierniewski: you and I both know that my client won’t say a word until I have certain assurances.”

Rolling her eyes, Abbie said, “Oh,
please
.”

“That attitude, Lieutenant, will get you nowhere.”

“I can say the same to you, Mr. Petersen. We aren’t giving out assurances today. Best your client can hope for”—she turned her gaze upon Ippolito—“is a consideration.”

“Excuse me, Lieutenant, but I believe you’re speaking out of turn.” The lawyer turned his bespectacled gaze upon Phil. “The assistant district attorney is the man empowered to speak here.”

Phil smiled. Abbie had never liked Phil’s smile, as it always looked like the expression a shark would get before it chowed down on a bunch of tiny, defenseless fish, but she had to admit that it worked nicely across this particular table.

“Mr. Petersen, the only reason we’re having this meeting is because Judge Olesen had an emergency. Lieutenant Mills is here to provide testimony that’s going to combine with the sworn statement made by the late Sheriff Corbin—a very beloved figure in the community who was tragically killed only a few short months ago—to put your client away for
several years. You’ve had plenty of time to make a deal before this, and this eleventh-hour play isn’t impressing me. Also? Your client requested Lieutenant Mills by name. So I’m inclined to follow her lead on this.” He leaned back and gave Abbie a
you’re on
look.

Smiling sweetly, Abbie said, “Okay, Ippolito. Try to impress
me
.”

“All right, look, I
know
stuff, okay? I got people ’at talk t’me all’a time. I don’t even wanna know about half this crap, but they tell me anyhow. I mean, it’s a small community, y’know what I’m sayin’?”

Abbie started drumming her fingers on the metal table. It echoed off the walls. Reaching for the awful coffee, she said, “Ippolito, seriously, you
are
gonna come to the point before I take another sip of this sludge, or the rest of it goes down your jumpsuit.”