Chapter 28
Crane
“One week until the full moon,” Kat says quietly as she places a stack of books on the desk that Brom and I have taken over in the library.
Brom grunts as his eyes flick over her, pausing at her chest and her lips. “Is this your way of saying you want to practice beforehand?”
I kick Brom under the desk, but he ignores it.
“Actually,” she says, sitting down across from us, “as much as I enjoyed what we, uh, did in the woods during the dark moon, I think I would rather save myself for the next ritual. There’s something about it, about the way the energy gathers, that I feel will be more powerful if we let it build up for a while. Like filling a reservoir.”
“I’m inclined to agree with you,” I say, tapping my fingers on the desk. “We should save ourselves.”
Both she and Brom raise their brows and give me an incredulous look. “You think we should save ourselves?” Kat says.
I grin. “I mean, if you were adamant that you wanted to get under this desk and suck both our cocks at once, I wouldn’t say no.”
“Crane,” she hisses, looking around her. “Keep your voice down.”
“This might be one of those times you should use your inside voice, Crane,” Brom suggests. “For the record, I also wouldn’t say no.”
“No one is paying us any attention,” I assure them.
And it’s true. Though there aren’t many students in the library, they’re all staring listlessly at their books, some of them even asleep with their heads on the desks.
Being a teacher, I’m used to seeing students studying until the point of exhaustion.
In fact, that kind of devotion to academics usually warms my heart.
But this is different. This has nothing to do with studying. Something else is ailing these students, something linked to the sisters. But no matter how hard I think about it, I can’t figure out why this might be happening.
“Crane!” I hear a deep voice yell, and I look over to see Daniels marching into the library, obviously agitated. He comes straight over to us, barely acknowledging either Brom or Kat. “Crane, I need to speak with you.”
“Daniels, is everything all right?”
“No,” he says. “I need to speak with you. Alone.”
I shake my head. “Whatever you have to say to me you can say in front of them.”
Daniels looks at Brom and Kat, as if for the first time. He frowns, and I know he’s trying to figure out why these two are so special to me. But if he comes across the answer, it doesn’t show on his rattled face.
“Last week you were asking after the history teacher, Ms. Wiltern. Why?”
I blink at him calmly. “Because she was teaching some things to her students that seemed off the books, so to speak, and I wanted to get some more information about it. I was merely curious, that’s all.”
“Well, she’s gone,” he says brusquely.
“Gone?” I say, sitting up straighter. “What do you mean?”
“I mean she’s disappeared,” he says, leaning on the desk and breathing hard, like he ran all the way over here. “And Ms. Peek too. Both are gone.”
“Ms. Peek?” Kat says with a gasp, jolting in her seat. “What happened to her? I was just in her class the other day.”
He takes his hat off his head and starts turning it around and around in his hands. “I don’t know. I just don’t know. But don’t you see how strange this is? First Desi disappears. Then the girl jumps off the roof—”
“Jumped or fell?” Kat says, testing him.
“Jumped. I saw it. We all saw it. She jumped. Then the sisters tried lying to us all, the entire school, to pass it off as if it was an accident. No, ma’am.
I know what happened. Now Ms. Wiltern and Ms. Peek are gone.
Their rooms are untouched, all their belongings are there, but they’re nowhere to be found. ”
“Do you know if Ms. Wiltern was feeling sick lately?” Brom asks.
Daniels shakes his head. “I have no idea. I barely talked to the woman. She always rebuked me when I did, but I certainly meant her no harm. So where did she go? Leaving all her papers here, not telling a soul?”
I bite my lower lip for a moment. “Have you told the sisters about your concerns?”
“Not yet, but I will,” he says.
“Mmm, maybe think twice before doing that,” I advise him.
“Why?”
I give him a steady look and lower my voice. “I don’t think they’re on our side, Daniels.”
His chin jerks inward. “You mean to tell me that you think they have something to do with all of this?”
“And you don’t?” I counter gently.
He grumbles, moving his mustache back and forth, and straightens up. “I’ll tell you who I will talk to. The constable. The new one, who isn’t missing a head.”
“There’s a new one already?” I ask.
“I’m sure there is,” he says. “Someone has to protect Sleepy Hollow.”
Then he turns around and marches out of the library in the same harried way he came in.
Someone has to protect Sleepy Hollow. But who is there to protect the school?
I sigh and lean back in my chair, running my hand over my face.
It’s going to have to be me, isn’t it?
—
That night Kat sneaks into my bedroom so the three of us can discuss our plan.
With the full moon ritual a week away, we have to do everything we can to make sure it goes off without a hitch.
The horseman must be expelled, and I know that with every day that passes, Brom becomes more and more attached to the spirit.
Sometimes Brom goes completely silent and drifts off, but it’s not his normal brooding way, it’s like he’s having a conversation inside his head and I have no clue what the horseman is saying to him.
But I do know he’ll lie to Brom to get what he wants, whatever that is.
“Kat,” I say gently. “You said something the other day when you told us what Famke shared about your mother. You used the word ‘siphoning.’ ”
It’s a delicate subject because I believe Famke used it with regard to her father, so I don’t want to say any more if it’s going to make Kat uncomfortable.
Kat’s sitting on the bed and leaning against the wall, an open book on her lap that’s slowly sliding off. Her eyes have been closed for most of the last hour. It’s getting late.
“Yes,” she says, sitting up straighter. “She said, ‘She takes what you’re made of and uses it for herself until there’s nothing left of you. She siphons your soul.’ And somehow that’s linked to her never seeming to age.”
Brom grunts at that, and Kat looks down beside her where he’s sprawled, face down on the pillow.
“It’s true,” he says, lifting his head slightly.
“The more I look back, the more I realize that Sarah has always looked exactly the same. When I was young I always thought she looked tired, but it was more than that.”
I tap my fingers on the desk rapidly, urging my exhausted mind to be more useful.
“She’s not a vampire,” I say. “Female vampires all turn at age twenty-one and stay that way for life, and none of them look tired. So she must have some sort of immortality? But no, that doesn’t make sense.
From what Ms. Wiltern said, and what Leona said herself, immortality seemed something they were striving for.
A part of the bargain. Goruun wouldn’t give them that before he was given what they promised him. ”
“She’s stealing other people’s magic,” Kat says. “She took my father’s, and she wanted to take mine. I don’t think she’s immortal, but I think she’s able to extend her life from the magic she takes. Maybe the sisters are the same way.”
“The sisters are absolutely the same,” Brom mumbles.
“How does one…siphon?” I ponder.
Kat shrugs, expression strained. “My father seemed to die of a heart attack. If she physically did anything to him, I couldn’t see it.”
I know it’s hard for her to talk about it, so I try to change the subject off her father. “Have you ever felt strange around your mother?”
She lets out a caustic laugh. “Only all the time.”
“You’ve never felt her try and take your magic before?”
“I’ve never shown her my magic…” She trails off, deep in thought. “Only once. The day she helped me move in. I was so exhausted after that, but I had every reason to be.”
“Hmm,” I mutter. I wonder if it’s like the opposite of bestowal. Or what I taught in class the day that Lotte died. Like energy augmentation but different. Energy conversion?
“Kat, can you hand me that book?” I ask.
She picks up the one on her lap, and I lean over, taking it from her, and sit back in my seat, flipping through the pages, trying to find a section on energy.
Meanwhile, Brom adjusts himself on the bed, lifting his arm and hooking it over Kat’s thigh, and slowly starts gathering up the hem of her dress.
I watch this from my seat at the desk, wanting to call out to him to stop distracting us like this, but I don’t say anything. I just watch as he’s gathered up enough fabric, and then slides his hand up her inner thigh.
Kat’s gaze drops to where his hand has disappeared, his head still face down on the pillow. She swallows hard and shifts her hips just a little, opening her legs to him.
Fuck.
Now I don’t want to watch anymore. Now I want to take part. I just don’t know what part to fuck, Kat’s mouth or Brom’s ass.
I reach down over my crotch, my erection stiff and throbbing needlessly and—
Thump.
Thump.
Thump.
“Jesus,” I swear under my breath. “Vivienne Henry, you have immaculate timing.”
Brom immediately removes his hand and sits up, eyes wide with fear. Kat presses her hand to her chest. “That’s her?” she whispers.
Thump.
Thump.
Thump.
Right outside the damn door.
I get up and grab the candlestick.
“You two stay here,” I say, heading toward the door.
“And let you go out there alone?” Kat says, getting to her feet alongside Brom.
“I don’t want to put you in any danger,” I tell her.
“Your late wife tried to drown me in the bathtub,” she points out. “I think I can manage.”
I nod, feeling a little guilty over that, then I open the door to the hall.