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jedibuttercupPG-13; Sleepy Hollow/B:tVS; 5000 words. AU for SH 1.6, "The Sin Eater". Originally posted in three parts at ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
twistedshorts.
How could she have believed that anything that appeared to her in Purgatory of its own volition could show her how to work against the one who ruled that realm? What thorn would Katrina be sending to her husband's bosom, if she allowed her desperation to drive her into the thicket of Moloch's manipulations? Surely there must be an alternative....
Title: A Glimmer of Hope
Author: Jedi Buttercup
Disclaimer: The words are mine; the worlds are not.
Rating: PG-13
Spoilers: Post-series for B:tVS; SH 1.6 - "The Sin Eater"
Notes: Random Buffy crossover month continues with yet another Sleepy Hollow fixit, spawned by research for something else tangled with an outstanding TTHFFA prompt. Because there is no canon here, only Zuul. :)
Summary: How could she have believed that anything that appeared to her in Purgatory of its own volition could show her how to work against the one who ruled that realm? What thorn would Katrina be sending to her husband's bosom, if she allowed her desperation to drive her into the thicket of Moloch's manipulations? Surely there must be an alternative....
A Glimmer of Hope
Katrina Crane, long-deceased witch and beloved wife of a man she had once given everything to save, hastily made preparations to contact her husband's current partner.
Her hex had kept him safe beneath the earth for more than two centuries, but now the Horseman of Death had awakened, and in doing so had dragged Ichabod-- via the blood link between them-- back to awareness as well. It had been inevitable that sooner or later her former coven and its allies would hear of that awakening, and seize upon the opportunity thus presented to slay the Horseman... and Ichabod, unfortunately, along with him. She had merely hoped that it would take a little longer; that he might find some way of freeing her before circumstances converged to send him to her instead.
She had been near despair when he vanished beyond the reach of her sight for the first time since his revival, but then a vision had suddenly appeared to her, presenting a new alternative: a means of separating Ichabod and the Horseman without killing either. That same vision had also indicated she could reach the second Witness via the same method she had used to reach her husband; all she had to do was open the doorway, hope Abbie was within line of sight of a mirror, and convey her message before the connection could be broken.
Katrina lit another candle within the illusory space she had constructed to initiate the contact, and closed her eyes to begin the spell that would call the doorway forth. It had grown more and more difficult to reach Ichabod in recent days as his spirit grew more at home in the present world, but the pathways had not yet fully closed, and she was aware that Miss Abigail Mills held some power of her own; that should make it just possible for the spell to work, and for her to pass on word of the Sin Eater who could break the blood tie before it was too late.
The first glimmer of hope in more than two centuries, and it had arrived just at the very moment when it was most required. If she had not known herself condemned to Purgatory by her own actions, she might almost have thought it the intervention of some higher being, rather than....
Rather than....
Katrina stifled a gasp and instinctively drew her magic back inward, suddenly brought back to reality. How could she have believed that anything that appeared to her here of its own volition could show her how to work against the one who ruled that realm? What thorn would she be sending to her husband's bosom, if she allowed her desperation to drive her into the thicket of Moloch's manipulations? She pressed her hand against her mouth, trembling upon the brink of tears, and frantically cast about for an alternative.
She still had her power, though its reach was limited; and she still had her autonomy, due the defensive amulet she had been wearing when the Four Who Speak as One had cornered her to enact their idea of justice. She could watch, through the void between worlds, any part of the Earth not otherwise concealed from her sight. She could contact those with whom she held a tie, when not otherwise blocked from her as Ichabod was now; and also any who held their own measure of power. But the coven that had sworn itself to Moloch would be of no more help now than they were then, and her own, the Sisterhood of the Radiant Heart, had maintained their enmity toward her ever since she had hidden Ichabod rather than allow them to slay him. Who then was left?
Unless... had other witches, unaligned with either coven, managed to spring up in the time since her imprisonment? She had not been desperate enough to look for any such before, wary of revealing her circumstances to strangers of unknowable motive who might simply agree with her former sisters rather than offer her any way out of her plight, but if she carefully parsed what she told them-- if she could buy Ichabod even a little more time, at whatever cost to herself--
She steeled herself, then reached out again, directing her magic to seek out its like rather than concentrating it upon the familiar energy of the Witnesses. The first few signatures she detected were swiftly dismissed, members of the Sisterhood one and all, and the next several groupings were too faint and strange to concentrate upon-- so many; not witches but something else unfamiliar-- but at last she came upon the fringes of a much stranger, and stronger presence. A witch of nearly unguessable power, steeped in pure Light yet scarred by past encounters with the Dark.
Katrina swallowed, faltering upon the edge of doubt, then pictured her husband's face again and spoke.
"Please," she whispered into the space between worlds, carefully brushing her own energy against that of the unknown witch. "Please, I need help. My husband has been cursed with a tie to an immortal demon, and if that tie is not broken within hours his own former allies will sacrifice him in order to destroy it."
The other witch's energy at first recoiled from her-- then abruptly reached back, and Katrina blinked as the semblance of a young woman appeared before her, dressed in a modern style with hair as red as her own.
"Who are you?" the young woman asked, brow furrowed. "How did you find me?"
"My name is Katrina Crane," Katrina replied hastily, holding her hands out in supplication. "I was trapped here, in the space between worlds, by those forces yet arrayed against my husband. I was a powerful witch in life, but none of my former allies are available to assist me. You're the first other witch I could detect who might have the strength to help. Please; Ichabod is in Sleepy Hollow, in the hands of those who will kill him if I cannot find someone who can sever his tie to the demon."
The young woman's green eyes widened; then she glanced up and down, scrutinizing Katrina's appearance more carefully. "You're a ghost? I've never seen a spirit with this much magic before, unanchored to the Earth. But you're definitely not from this time... ma'am, I'm sorry, but if your husband was in danger when you died...."
"No!" Katrina objected, hastily. "The story is much too long to explain now, but I'm well aware of time's fleeting passage. He whiled away the years betwixt then and now in a protective slumber, but was awakened untimely, and now they have found him. Please, you must help. I have no other alternative not set before me by the one who keeps me captive here-- and though I dare not trust a vision of his devising, if you cannot help me, I will have to attempt it regardless of the consequences."
She had begun her preparations to contact Miss Mills by envisioning a simulacrum of the house she had once shared with Ichabod; various warnings had been set into its structure to warn her when Moloch should draw near to the cave containing the mirror used to enable the communication spells. One of those alarms had begun to screech in warning, and the empty baby carriage always present in the corner of her eye began rolling forward of its own volition; she flinched and took a step closer to her guest.
"I cannot delay our discovery any longer; please, will you help me?"
The young woman's mouth was still set with wary suspicion. "Sleepy Hollow, New York? We've been hearing rumblings there about prophecies for awhile, though there's some kind of supernatural compact in place that says Slayers can't interfere unless they've been invited. Fair warning, I'm counting this as an invitation-- because where I go, Kennedy goes. And no matter what we find when we arrive there, if we find some big evil stirring, I'm calling Buffy in, too."
Her choice of words was unusual and largely indecipherable; whatever compact she was referring to must either pre- or post-date Katrina's time in the coven, and what exactly a Slayer was, she couldn't say. But the gist of the reply was clear, and more than welcome. "I cannot thank you enough!" Katrina cried, as the warning spell clamored again. "Miss...?"
"Call me Willow," the witch said, with a bright, crooked smile. Then she reached to clasp Katrina's hand-- and the simulacrum collapsed entirely, releasing her to a familiar candlelit cave carved with demonic sigils. No further sign of her visitor remained.
Katrina clasped her shaking fingers together, then took a deep breath and hurried back out into the haunted forest outside, heading for the ethereal echo of Miss Mills' ancestors' church. One way or another, there was little else she could do but light another candle for her son's and husband's souls-- and wait to see whether she had chosen the right course.
A Timely Arrival
"So do you think she was the real thing?" Kennedy asked skeptically, looking up from her parents' living room couch as Willow finished summarizing her story. "An actual ghost, reaching out to you for help? I know we've run into spirits before, but a sane one is kind of new. I mean, unless you count what happened to Spike after the Hellmouth collapsed, or that weird story we heard about that other friend of Angel's that used to be a Watcher...."
Half her life ago, before Buffy, before Oz and Tara, before Miss Calendar and Rack and the Temple of Proserpexa, Willow had once believed in absolutes. Things like good and evil, Newton's three laws of motion, and the inadvisability of wearing white after Labor Day. But if life as a Scooby had taught her anything, it was that there were always exceptions to every rule.
"I think the key thing there is that both of them were still actual souls anchored to their former lives, not just the echo of a person acting out their unresolved issues," Willow replied, thinking back over the astral conversation she'd just had with a strangely dressed red-haired witch. "And from what this Katrina said, it sounds like she is, too. Something about her husband being cursed by an immortal demon, and then 'whiling away the years betwixt then and now in a protective slumber'." She made curly quotes with her fingers around the old-timey phrasing.
"Like a gender-flipped Sleeping Beauty," Kennedy said, lifting her eyebrows. "So far, so good... except for the part where his wife's a ghost. Please tell me she didn't ask you to kiss him for her."
"Don't worry, he's already awake... except he's apparently still under the curse, and someone's about to kill him because of it." Willow wrinkled her nose. "It does all sound a little too fairy tale to be true, but if it was a trap, wouldn't she have reminded me not to bring a Slayer? Giles said the whole Hudson Valley's under the protection of some coven called the Sisterhood of the Radiant Heart; a little like the Devon coven he sent me to, except they're super prickly about visitors. Magical contracts and alarm wards and everything, and been that way for hundreds of years."
"I'm not surprised," Kennedy shrugged. "You know I grew up around here, and my first Watcher got real into the local stories. There's always been strange legends about the towns in that valley, and a lot of the other colonial or Revolutionary War sites in the area. But what would a coven that wants to protect people have against Slayers? That doesn't make any sense."
"Unless they have something to hide...." Willow mused. "Maybe this guy, Ichabod Crane, had something to do with it? The ghost seemed to think the good guys are the ones who want to kill him."
"Oh, that's not suspicious at all. How are we supposed to know she's on the right side?"
"I thought we'd start with the side of not letting anyone get killed until we find out exactly what's going on?" Willow shrugged, smiling ruefully. "I told her I was going to consider it an invite, and she actually said thank you, so. Can't hurt to at least go find out what's going on."
"And kill it with fire if it does turn out to be a trap," Kennedy conceded, then stretched and got up. "I'll let my parents know we're going to go do the tourist thing for awhile. Good thing we were already close by, huh?"
"Yeah, good thing," Willow replied dryly, leaning in for a kiss. "Don't get lost in this maze of a house-- I wouldn't know where you were to come and find you."
"Ha, ha," Kennedy replied, smirking, then turned and walked out of the room.
Willow called Buffy next, to let her friend know what was going on, then did a quick Google directions search on her phone. The Hamptons to Sleepy Hollow was something like a hundred miles, which would work out to more than two hours in traffic; good thing they'd slept pretty well the night before. They'd have to take what Kennedy called the Willow Express, using the link the ghost had established with her to hone in on related energies in the town, and hope it got them close to the captive husband in question.
"Ready to go?" she said, looking up again with a smile as Kennedy came back into the room.
Her girlfriend grinned, propping her favorite sword against her shoulder. "Ready."
"All right, then." Willow held out a hand, tangling her fingers tightly with Kennedy's free hand as she closed her eyes to focus on their target. The magic would protect them from materializing inside solid matter or anything else life-threatening, but it would be too easy to end up lost if she let herself get distracted. "Discede!"
The world whirled around them in a burst of sound and light... then reformed, unexpectedly, into the back seat of a car traveling down a narrow highway.
"Whoa!" Kennedy exclaimed, her sword sheath banging against a door as she flailed at the sudden change of equilibrium.
"Whoa," Willow echoed, dizzied by the energy required to compensate for going from zero to sixty in the time it took to cast the spell.
"What the hell!" the driver of the car exclaimed, jerking the wheel and nearly ramming them into an oncoming truck as she reacted in surprise to the sudden guests that had appeared in her vehicle. She corrected quickly, slamming on the brakes and pulling off to the side of the road almost before Willow had managed to regain her bearings, then whipped around in her seat.
"You have thirty seconds to tell me who the hell you are, and how exactly you got into my car," she said, in a dangerous tone that could rival Buffy at her most General-y.
Whoever she was, she definitely wasn't the cursed husband. Some kind of shield had prevented Willow from going straight to him. But the woman had to be connected to the witch and/ or her husband somehow, or the teleportation spell wouldn't have dropped them there. Somebody Ichabod Crane had met since his awakening, and had some kind of bond with. Not the demon he was supposedly tied to, though; at this close range Willow would definitely be able to tell. She felt kind of like a Slayer, actually; not exactly, but she definitely had a mystical flag of some kind attached to her.
The surprise of the moment, though, had totally blanked any introduction Willow might have had in mind. "Uhh..." she said. What would Xander say in a situation like this? "My name is Willow Rosenberg, and I'm here to rescue... some guy named Ichabod Crane?"
"Crane?" the woman objected, eyebrows climbing her forehead. "I left him in town just a few minutes ago; if you're going to go to all the trouble to materialize in my car just to tell a lie, I'd pick something a little less obvious."
One of her hands was hidden behind the seat, and from the way Kennedy was eyeing her, Willow was pretty sure it held a weapon. So much for making a good impression. "I'm not lying," she said, lifting her empty hands where the woman could see them. "Do you know his wife? A woman named Katrina?"
The woman frowned, and narrowed her eyes. "No, I don't, because she's been dead for more than two hundred years. Are you trying to tell me she's been in contact with you? Wait-- don't tell me. You're part of her coven, aren't you?"
"No, but I am a witch. She found me and told me her husband was cursed by a tie to an immortal demon, and he'd been taken by former allies who wanted to sacrifice him to destroy it. We were trying to go straight to him, but ended up here instead."
"An immortal demon? Well, I guess that's one way to describe the Horseman of Death." She grimaced. "And here's the backseat of a car belonging to Lieutenant Abbie Mills of the Sleepy Hollow Sheriff's Department. Did she happen to say who the allies were? Or where they may have taken him? And why you did show up here? Because you're damn lucky I even know what you're talking about."
"Wait a minute. Did you just say the Horseman of Death?" Kennedy interjected. "As in, the Biblical horseman who heralded the apocalypse?"
"As in Revelation, the Book Of," Lieutenant Mills said, dryly. "All this is still kind of new to me-- but he and I are supposed to be some kind of Witnesses charged to stop it. It's kind of a long story."
The OG apocalypse? They'd faced a lot of potential ends of the world, but that was a first. She fumbled her phone out of her pocket; definitely going to have to call Buffy again.
"Tell us more."
A Destiny Unchained
Ichabod Crane swam muzzily back to awareness, finding himself slumped against a table in a slightly chilly, evidently candle-lit room. Tongues of flame danced in his line of vision as he straightened slowly in the chair he had been placed in, and struggled to focus his eyes upon the face of the person seating themselves opposite. The air was slightly chilly-- underground perhaps? His last memory was of the sight of his wife's tombstone, and a sharp sting pressing against the side of his neck.
Clearly, he had been abducted. And there was something strangely familiar about his captor....
"Apologies for the less than civil nature of your seizure," the man began. His tone was formal, though conciliatory, in a paternally condescending mode Ichabod was all too familiar with from his childhood. His hair was short and dark, curling against his head; he wore a suit of modern cut, a rather flashy timepiece, and the very obvious lack of something that told Ichabod instantly what he must be. A Freemason: the ring bearing the inverted square and compass had clearly just been removed from his person in an attempt to conceal his affiliation.
"We didn't believe you would come voluntarily," he added, then opened his mouth to say something more... but whatever it might have been, his further justification, and the pointed rebuttal Ichabod was already preparing, were sadly destined to go unheard.
"That was your first mistake," a blessedly familiar voice interrupted instead, announcing the arrival of his Witness partner at the doorway. "The second? Assuming no one would be able to find you down here."
The Mason whirled in his chair, face betraying surprise at Miss Mills' intrusion; his eyes dropped to the figure of a man in a grey suit slumped before her upon the floor, then snapped up to a pale, dark-haired woman standing beside the Lieutenant with her hands held before her in loose fists. Behind the two women, a third with red hair a shade or two lighter than Katrina's cupped the air before her chest; she seemed to cradle a spark of light there that sprang from no visible source.
"You can't be here," the Mason-- presumably one J. Rutledge, to judge by the initialled cufflinks and the resemblance to the youngest signatory of the Declaration of Independence-- blurted in reply, staring not at Miss Mills but at the two strangers. "I've seen the contract; it was maintained by our forefathers even after they broke with the Sisterhood of the Radiant Heart. And regardless of the recent changes to your organisation, the stipulations still hold."
"Well, that's my conscience cleared," Miss Mills said dryly, lifting an eyebrow at the exchange. "I'm sure it'll come as no surprise, but anyone who has an issue with people who protect innocents from evil? Has an issue with me. And if you took Ichabod for the same reason Katrina's coven wanted him? That's not going to happen."
"You don't understand." Rutledge dragged his wary gaze away from the strangers for a moment to frown at the Lieutenant. "He will not be hurt by our hand. But his continued existence comes at the expense of the greater good; we seek only to remind him of his duty, and his oaths."
"Without even searching for any way to break the curse, first?" The evident witch asked, a distinct note of scorn in her American-accented voice. "If you know who we are, then you know the Sisterhood's not the only coven out there. If the only reason he's here is because he tried to kill a demon and didn't quite finish the job, it should be your duty to help him, not sacrifice him to it. It shouldn't have taken a dead woman issuing an invitation to bring us into it."
A dead woman? Did she mean Katrina? The evidence that his wife's continued existence, however ethereal, was more than a product of his own mind was a welcome relief amidst the other disorientations of the day. Particularly since Rutledge's meaning was neither opaque, nor a complete surprise to Ichabod. He had considered the idea, once or twice, that if they actually managed to defeat the Horseman of Death in one of their encounters, his life might be extinguished along with the demon's; it stood to reason that his former brethren had come to the logical, complimentary conclusion.
"Coercing someone into committing suicide doesn't actually take the blood off your hands, you know," Miss Mills added sharply, her gaze shifting to his as if aware of the thrust of his thoughts. "There is always another way."
Mr. Rutledge shook his head, the very picture of regretful resignation. "Perhaps if we had located him earlier, it might have been possible to seek an alternative... but even if they could be decoupled now, it would only free the demon to continue his rampage. Even a witch as powerful as you are rumoured to be, Miss Rosenberg, cannot stand against the Horseman of Death; not even with a Slayer at your side."
"We'll see about that," Miss Rosenberg replied, then turned to look at Ichabod directly. "You're Ichabod, right? Like I said, I'm here because your wife reached out; she was hoping I'd be able to help."
"We're pretty much on the side of not letting anybody get killed," the other stranger spoke up-- the one Mr. Rutledge had referred to by the somewhat alarming appellation 'Slayer'. "So we're willing to give it a try. Are you good with that? Or should we just leave you to sit here and let this asshole guilt trip you some more?"
Miss Mills made an amused, indelicate sound at that odd collection of modern phrases; Ichabod glanced between the unfamiliar women and his partner once more as he parsed their meaning, then pushed his chair deliberately back from the table and stood.
"I am at your disposal, ladies; my wife's recommendation, and my partner's evident approval, are more than enough to compel my grateful cooperation."
"Good," Miss Rosenberg said, expression brightening into a smile. Then she stepped forward, holding out a hand palm-uppermost. "Do you mind if I...?"
The spark of light he'd noted earlier was no longer in evidence; absent its presence, she looked quite ordinary, but he had recently had reason to learn what depths such a commonplace façade could conceal. He glanced once more at the Lieutenant, automatically seeking assurance, then cleared his throat and stepped forward, extending his own hand for the witch to grasp.
"Of course. What must I do?"
"Just wait," her companion answered, smiling warmly at Miss Rosenberg as the red-haired woman closed her eyes, an expression of intense concentration overcoming her features.
Rutledge had not attempted to interfere any further, though the depth of his frown betrayed his uneasiness with the proceedings; he too stood from the table as the moment lengthened, moving to check on his associates-- both the one slumped on the floor, and one that had apparently been positioned outside the door to the chamber. Both were unconscious, but apparently otherwise unhurt; a confirmation, if he'd yet needed one, of his rescuers' benevolence.
Finally, Miss Rosenberg opened her eyes again; he was startled to see that they had changed in colour, the native green of her irises shrouded in solid black. "Got him," she said in a fierce voice, then called aloud in somewhat butchered Latin, speaking words of summoning.
The air grew strangely disturbed at her words, whipping the candle-flames in a damply-scented breeze; at the same time, Ichabod felt a strange, painful tugging sensation deep within, as if something deeply rooted were being torn out of him. Finally, Miss Rosenberg gave a cry of triumph... and a figure in an antique British uniform, minus its head, abruptly appeared on the far side of the room.
Rutledge swore, scrambling for a weapon; Abbie drew her sidearm; Miss Rosenberg let go his hand to confront the intruder with outwardly-extended palms; and a sword appeared in the Slayer's hand. Before anyone could move to further react, however, the Slayer made a loud scoffing noise, straightening from her ready crouch to point the blade in the demon's direction.
"Wait a minute, back up the train. That's the Horseman of Death? A freaking Headless Horseman? In freaking Sleepy Hollow? Please tell me your friend here's not supposed to be that Ichabod Crane."
Ichabod took in her incredulous expression, distracted for a moment from the imminent threat, then glanced at his partner, only to find Abbie rolling her eyes at the woman. "Ix-nay on the egend-lay, okay? I've been trying to keep him from stumbling across a copy of the book; it's bad enough finding out it might have some basis in reality, I'm really not interested in his commentary on the characterization choices."
"Are you serious?" the Slayer replied, incredulously. "Fighting demons is one thing, but this is my childhood you're trampling all over, here."
"Don't talk to me about childhoods," Abbie replied with a grim shake of her head.
"We will be having words about this, Lieutenant," Ichabod said, irked by this new revelation; he'd had quite enough of people keeping secrets from him for his own good, thank you.
Fortunately, while they'd been distracted, Miss Rosenberg had been murmuring in butchered Latin once more; just as it occurred to him that he really ought to be paying more attention to their foe, the Horseman was already collapsing to the ground, limply sprawling upon the stone floor.
"Well, that was anticlimactic," the Slayer said. "Did you kill him, or what?"
"Not exactly; that really was the Horseman of Death, so it's not exactly killable," the witch grimaced. "Luckily, it needs a host body, so I was able to banish it. It'll probably be able to come back, but we are talking capital-A apocalypse here, so there'll be plenty of warning when it does. Just, you know." She turned to Miss Mills with an awkward shrug. "Maybe don't go breaking any mystery seals, or opening Purgatory, or anything in the meantime?"
"You don't need to tell me twice," Miss Mills replied with a wide-eyed shudder. She walked cautiously over to prod the infernal corpse, then sighed and reholstered her weapon. "I don't suppose you have a business card or something, so we can call you the next time we get stuck? Because I don't mind telling you, I'd rather not have to wait for the ghost telephone if this happens again."
"Sure," Willow replied, her natural sunny mood-- and attendant green gaze-- returning as she dug a rectangle of paper from a pocket of her skirt. "I'm Willow, and this is Kennedy-- we work for the ISWC. There used to be just a few of us, but we're all over the country now. We haven't had time to catch up with all the isolated areas that used to be other under mystical management yet-- sorry about that-- but we do have a constant presence in New York City, so. Whenever you call, someone'll answer, even if it isn't me."
The Lieutenant took the slip of paper, still smiling; Mr. Rutledge, Ichabod was bemused to note, looked rather more put out than that than he had even at the women's arrival.
"Perhaps we might find a more conducive environment for further discussion, and libations with which to celebrate?" he suggested, turning his back on the Mason.
Some other time, he might ask about the handmade book Rutledge had left on the table, or any records the Freemasons might have kept referencing his wife's coven, but for the moment, discretion seemed to be the better part of valour.
"Sounds good to me," Kennedy said, glancing slyly at the Lieutenant. "Because you know I've got a lot of questions."
Abbie groaned, and cast her eyes to the heavens; Willow laughed, linking elbows with her companion, and led the way toward the door.
Apocalypse yet in the offing or not, Ichabod had the feeling their struggle had just lightened a great deal.
(x-posted on twistedshorts - one | two | three - and on AO3)
twistedshorts.How could she have believed that anything that appeared to her in Purgatory of its own volition could show her how to work against the one who ruled that realm? What thorn would Katrina be sending to her husband's bosom, if she allowed her desperation to drive her into the thicket of Moloch's manipulations? Surely there must be an alternative....
Title: A Glimmer of Hope
Author: Jedi Buttercup
Disclaimer: The words are mine; the worlds are not.
Rating: PG-13
Spoilers: Post-series for B:tVS; SH 1.6 - "The Sin Eater"
Notes: Random Buffy crossover month continues with yet another Sleepy Hollow fixit, spawned by research for something else tangled with an outstanding TTHFFA prompt. Because there is no canon here, only Zuul. :)
Summary: How could she have believed that anything that appeared to her in Purgatory of its own volition could show her how to work against the one who ruled that realm? What thorn would Katrina be sending to her husband's bosom, if she allowed her desperation to drive her into the thicket of Moloch's manipulations? Surely there must be an alternative....
A Glimmer of Hope
Katrina Crane, long-deceased witch and beloved wife of a man she had once given everything to save, hastily made preparations to contact her husband's current partner.
Her hex had kept him safe beneath the earth for more than two centuries, but now the Horseman of Death had awakened, and in doing so had dragged Ichabod-- via the blood link between them-- back to awareness as well. It had been inevitable that sooner or later her former coven and its allies would hear of that awakening, and seize upon the opportunity thus presented to slay the Horseman... and Ichabod, unfortunately, along with him. She had merely hoped that it would take a little longer; that he might find some way of freeing her before circumstances converged to send him to her instead.
She had been near despair when he vanished beyond the reach of her sight for the first time since his revival, but then a vision had suddenly appeared to her, presenting a new alternative: a means of separating Ichabod and the Horseman without killing either. That same vision had also indicated she could reach the second Witness via the same method she had used to reach her husband; all she had to do was open the doorway, hope Abbie was within line of sight of a mirror, and convey her message before the connection could be broken.
Katrina lit another candle within the illusory space she had constructed to initiate the contact, and closed her eyes to begin the spell that would call the doorway forth. It had grown more and more difficult to reach Ichabod in recent days as his spirit grew more at home in the present world, but the pathways had not yet fully closed, and she was aware that Miss Abigail Mills held some power of her own; that should make it just possible for the spell to work, and for her to pass on word of the Sin Eater who could break the blood tie before it was too late.
The first glimmer of hope in more than two centuries, and it had arrived just at the very moment when it was most required. If she had not known herself condemned to Purgatory by her own actions, she might almost have thought it the intervention of some higher being, rather than....
Rather than....
Katrina stifled a gasp and instinctively drew her magic back inward, suddenly brought back to reality. How could she have believed that anything that appeared to her here of its own volition could show her how to work against the one who ruled that realm? What thorn would she be sending to her husband's bosom, if she allowed her desperation to drive her into the thicket of Moloch's manipulations? She pressed her hand against her mouth, trembling upon the brink of tears, and frantically cast about for an alternative.
She still had her power, though its reach was limited; and she still had her autonomy, due the defensive amulet she had been wearing when the Four Who Speak as One had cornered her to enact their idea of justice. She could watch, through the void between worlds, any part of the Earth not otherwise concealed from her sight. She could contact those with whom she held a tie, when not otherwise blocked from her as Ichabod was now; and also any who held their own measure of power. But the coven that had sworn itself to Moloch would be of no more help now than they were then, and her own, the Sisterhood of the Radiant Heart, had maintained their enmity toward her ever since she had hidden Ichabod rather than allow them to slay him. Who then was left?
Unless... had other witches, unaligned with either coven, managed to spring up in the time since her imprisonment? She had not been desperate enough to look for any such before, wary of revealing her circumstances to strangers of unknowable motive who might simply agree with her former sisters rather than offer her any way out of her plight, but if she carefully parsed what she told them-- if she could buy Ichabod even a little more time, at whatever cost to herself--
She steeled herself, then reached out again, directing her magic to seek out its like rather than concentrating it upon the familiar energy of the Witnesses. The first few signatures she detected were swiftly dismissed, members of the Sisterhood one and all, and the next several groupings were too faint and strange to concentrate upon-- so many; not witches but something else unfamiliar-- but at last she came upon the fringes of a much stranger, and stronger presence. A witch of nearly unguessable power, steeped in pure Light yet scarred by past encounters with the Dark.
Katrina swallowed, faltering upon the edge of doubt, then pictured her husband's face again and spoke.
"Please," she whispered into the space between worlds, carefully brushing her own energy against that of the unknown witch. "Please, I need help. My husband has been cursed with a tie to an immortal demon, and if that tie is not broken within hours his own former allies will sacrifice him in order to destroy it."
The other witch's energy at first recoiled from her-- then abruptly reached back, and Katrina blinked as the semblance of a young woman appeared before her, dressed in a modern style with hair as red as her own.
"Who are you?" the young woman asked, brow furrowed. "How did you find me?"
"My name is Katrina Crane," Katrina replied hastily, holding her hands out in supplication. "I was trapped here, in the space between worlds, by those forces yet arrayed against my husband. I was a powerful witch in life, but none of my former allies are available to assist me. You're the first other witch I could detect who might have the strength to help. Please; Ichabod is in Sleepy Hollow, in the hands of those who will kill him if I cannot find someone who can sever his tie to the demon."
The young woman's green eyes widened; then she glanced up and down, scrutinizing Katrina's appearance more carefully. "You're a ghost? I've never seen a spirit with this much magic before, unanchored to the Earth. But you're definitely not from this time... ma'am, I'm sorry, but if your husband was in danger when you died...."
"No!" Katrina objected, hastily. "The story is much too long to explain now, but I'm well aware of time's fleeting passage. He whiled away the years betwixt then and now in a protective slumber, but was awakened untimely, and now they have found him. Please, you must help. I have no other alternative not set before me by the one who keeps me captive here-- and though I dare not trust a vision of his devising, if you cannot help me, I will have to attempt it regardless of the consequences."
She had begun her preparations to contact Miss Mills by envisioning a simulacrum of the house she had once shared with Ichabod; various warnings had been set into its structure to warn her when Moloch should draw near to the cave containing the mirror used to enable the communication spells. One of those alarms had begun to screech in warning, and the empty baby carriage always present in the corner of her eye began rolling forward of its own volition; she flinched and took a step closer to her guest.
"I cannot delay our discovery any longer; please, will you help me?"
The young woman's mouth was still set with wary suspicion. "Sleepy Hollow, New York? We've been hearing rumblings there about prophecies for awhile, though there's some kind of supernatural compact in place that says Slayers can't interfere unless they've been invited. Fair warning, I'm counting this as an invitation-- because where I go, Kennedy goes. And no matter what we find when we arrive there, if we find some big evil stirring, I'm calling Buffy in, too."
Her choice of words was unusual and largely indecipherable; whatever compact she was referring to must either pre- or post-date Katrina's time in the coven, and what exactly a Slayer was, she couldn't say. But the gist of the reply was clear, and more than welcome. "I cannot thank you enough!" Katrina cried, as the warning spell clamored again. "Miss...?"
"Call me Willow," the witch said, with a bright, crooked smile. Then she reached to clasp Katrina's hand-- and the simulacrum collapsed entirely, releasing her to a familiar candlelit cave carved with demonic sigils. No further sign of her visitor remained.
Katrina clasped her shaking fingers together, then took a deep breath and hurried back out into the haunted forest outside, heading for the ethereal echo of Miss Mills' ancestors' church. One way or another, there was little else she could do but light another candle for her son's and husband's souls-- and wait to see whether she had chosen the right course.
A Timely Arrival
"So do you think she was the real thing?" Kennedy asked skeptically, looking up from her parents' living room couch as Willow finished summarizing her story. "An actual ghost, reaching out to you for help? I know we've run into spirits before, but a sane one is kind of new. I mean, unless you count what happened to Spike after the Hellmouth collapsed, or that weird story we heard about that other friend of Angel's that used to be a Watcher...."
Half her life ago, before Buffy, before Oz and Tara, before Miss Calendar and Rack and the Temple of Proserpexa, Willow had once believed in absolutes. Things like good and evil, Newton's three laws of motion, and the inadvisability of wearing white after Labor Day. But if life as a Scooby had taught her anything, it was that there were always exceptions to every rule.
"I think the key thing there is that both of them were still actual souls anchored to their former lives, not just the echo of a person acting out their unresolved issues," Willow replied, thinking back over the astral conversation she'd just had with a strangely dressed red-haired witch. "And from what this Katrina said, it sounds like she is, too. Something about her husband being cursed by an immortal demon, and then 'whiling away the years betwixt then and now in a protective slumber'." She made curly quotes with her fingers around the old-timey phrasing.
"Like a gender-flipped Sleeping Beauty," Kennedy said, lifting her eyebrows. "So far, so good... except for the part where his wife's a ghost. Please tell me she didn't ask you to kiss him for her."
"Don't worry, he's already awake... except he's apparently still under the curse, and someone's about to kill him because of it." Willow wrinkled her nose. "It does all sound a little too fairy tale to be true, but if it was a trap, wouldn't she have reminded me not to bring a Slayer? Giles said the whole Hudson Valley's under the protection of some coven called the Sisterhood of the Radiant Heart; a little like the Devon coven he sent me to, except they're super prickly about visitors. Magical contracts and alarm wards and everything, and been that way for hundreds of years."
"I'm not surprised," Kennedy shrugged. "You know I grew up around here, and my first Watcher got real into the local stories. There's always been strange legends about the towns in that valley, and a lot of the other colonial or Revolutionary War sites in the area. But what would a coven that wants to protect people have against Slayers? That doesn't make any sense."
"Unless they have something to hide...." Willow mused. "Maybe this guy, Ichabod Crane, had something to do with it? The ghost seemed to think the good guys are the ones who want to kill him."
"Oh, that's not suspicious at all. How are we supposed to know she's on the right side?"
"I thought we'd start with the side of not letting anyone get killed until we find out exactly what's going on?" Willow shrugged, smiling ruefully. "I told her I was going to consider it an invite, and she actually said thank you, so. Can't hurt to at least go find out what's going on."
"And kill it with fire if it does turn out to be a trap," Kennedy conceded, then stretched and got up. "I'll let my parents know we're going to go do the tourist thing for awhile. Good thing we were already close by, huh?"
"Yeah, good thing," Willow replied dryly, leaning in for a kiss. "Don't get lost in this maze of a house-- I wouldn't know where you were to come and find you."
"Ha, ha," Kennedy replied, smirking, then turned and walked out of the room.
Willow called Buffy next, to let her friend know what was going on, then did a quick Google directions search on her phone. The Hamptons to Sleepy Hollow was something like a hundred miles, which would work out to more than two hours in traffic; good thing they'd slept pretty well the night before. They'd have to take what Kennedy called the Willow Express, using the link the ghost had established with her to hone in on related energies in the town, and hope it got them close to the captive husband in question.
"Ready to go?" she said, looking up again with a smile as Kennedy came back into the room.
Her girlfriend grinned, propping her favorite sword against her shoulder. "Ready."
"All right, then." Willow held out a hand, tangling her fingers tightly with Kennedy's free hand as she closed her eyes to focus on their target. The magic would protect them from materializing inside solid matter or anything else life-threatening, but it would be too easy to end up lost if she let herself get distracted. "Discede!"
The world whirled around them in a burst of sound and light... then reformed, unexpectedly, into the back seat of a car traveling down a narrow highway.
"Whoa!" Kennedy exclaimed, her sword sheath banging against a door as she flailed at the sudden change of equilibrium.
"Whoa," Willow echoed, dizzied by the energy required to compensate for going from zero to sixty in the time it took to cast the spell.
"What the hell!" the driver of the car exclaimed, jerking the wheel and nearly ramming them into an oncoming truck as she reacted in surprise to the sudden guests that had appeared in her vehicle. She corrected quickly, slamming on the brakes and pulling off to the side of the road almost before Willow had managed to regain her bearings, then whipped around in her seat.
"You have thirty seconds to tell me who the hell you are, and how exactly you got into my car," she said, in a dangerous tone that could rival Buffy at her most General-y.
Whoever she was, she definitely wasn't the cursed husband. Some kind of shield had prevented Willow from going straight to him. But the woman had to be connected to the witch and/ or her husband somehow, or the teleportation spell wouldn't have dropped them there. Somebody Ichabod Crane had met since his awakening, and had some kind of bond with. Not the demon he was supposedly tied to, though; at this close range Willow would definitely be able to tell. She felt kind of like a Slayer, actually; not exactly, but she definitely had a mystical flag of some kind attached to her.
The surprise of the moment, though, had totally blanked any introduction Willow might have had in mind. "Uhh..." she said. What would Xander say in a situation like this? "My name is Willow Rosenberg, and I'm here to rescue... some guy named Ichabod Crane?"
"Crane?" the woman objected, eyebrows climbing her forehead. "I left him in town just a few minutes ago; if you're going to go to all the trouble to materialize in my car just to tell a lie, I'd pick something a little less obvious."
One of her hands was hidden behind the seat, and from the way Kennedy was eyeing her, Willow was pretty sure it held a weapon. So much for making a good impression. "I'm not lying," she said, lifting her empty hands where the woman could see them. "Do you know his wife? A woman named Katrina?"
The woman frowned, and narrowed her eyes. "No, I don't, because she's been dead for more than two hundred years. Are you trying to tell me she's been in contact with you? Wait-- don't tell me. You're part of her coven, aren't you?"
"No, but I am a witch. She found me and told me her husband was cursed by a tie to an immortal demon, and he'd been taken by former allies who wanted to sacrifice him to destroy it. We were trying to go straight to him, but ended up here instead."
"An immortal demon? Well, I guess that's one way to describe the Horseman of Death." She grimaced. "And here's the backseat of a car belonging to Lieutenant Abbie Mills of the Sleepy Hollow Sheriff's Department. Did she happen to say who the allies were? Or where they may have taken him? And why you did show up here? Because you're damn lucky I even know what you're talking about."
"Wait a minute. Did you just say the Horseman of Death?" Kennedy interjected. "As in, the Biblical horseman who heralded the apocalypse?"
"As in Revelation, the Book Of," Lieutenant Mills said, dryly. "All this is still kind of new to me-- but he and I are supposed to be some kind of Witnesses charged to stop it. It's kind of a long story."
The OG apocalypse? They'd faced a lot of potential ends of the world, but that was a first. She fumbled her phone out of her pocket; definitely going to have to call Buffy again.
"Tell us more."
A Destiny Unchained
Ichabod Crane swam muzzily back to awareness, finding himself slumped against a table in a slightly chilly, evidently candle-lit room. Tongues of flame danced in his line of vision as he straightened slowly in the chair he had been placed in, and struggled to focus his eyes upon the face of the person seating themselves opposite. The air was slightly chilly-- underground perhaps? His last memory was of the sight of his wife's tombstone, and a sharp sting pressing against the side of his neck.
Clearly, he had been abducted. And there was something strangely familiar about his captor....
"Apologies for the less than civil nature of your seizure," the man began. His tone was formal, though conciliatory, in a paternally condescending mode Ichabod was all too familiar with from his childhood. His hair was short and dark, curling against his head; he wore a suit of modern cut, a rather flashy timepiece, and the very obvious lack of something that told Ichabod instantly what he must be. A Freemason: the ring bearing the inverted square and compass had clearly just been removed from his person in an attempt to conceal his affiliation.
"We didn't believe you would come voluntarily," he added, then opened his mouth to say something more... but whatever it might have been, his further justification, and the pointed rebuttal Ichabod was already preparing, were sadly destined to go unheard.
"That was your first mistake," a blessedly familiar voice interrupted instead, announcing the arrival of his Witness partner at the doorway. "The second? Assuming no one would be able to find you down here."
The Mason whirled in his chair, face betraying surprise at Miss Mills' intrusion; his eyes dropped to the figure of a man in a grey suit slumped before her upon the floor, then snapped up to a pale, dark-haired woman standing beside the Lieutenant with her hands held before her in loose fists. Behind the two women, a third with red hair a shade or two lighter than Katrina's cupped the air before her chest; she seemed to cradle a spark of light there that sprang from no visible source.
"You can't be here," the Mason-- presumably one J. Rutledge, to judge by the initialled cufflinks and the resemblance to the youngest signatory of the Declaration of Independence-- blurted in reply, staring not at Miss Mills but at the two strangers. "I've seen the contract; it was maintained by our forefathers even after they broke with the Sisterhood of the Radiant Heart. And regardless of the recent changes to your organisation, the stipulations still hold."
"Well, that's my conscience cleared," Miss Mills said dryly, lifting an eyebrow at the exchange. "I'm sure it'll come as no surprise, but anyone who has an issue with people who protect innocents from evil? Has an issue with me. And if you took Ichabod for the same reason Katrina's coven wanted him? That's not going to happen."
"You don't understand." Rutledge dragged his wary gaze away from the strangers for a moment to frown at the Lieutenant. "He will not be hurt by our hand. But his continued existence comes at the expense of the greater good; we seek only to remind him of his duty, and his oaths."
"Without even searching for any way to break the curse, first?" The evident witch asked, a distinct note of scorn in her American-accented voice. "If you know who we are, then you know the Sisterhood's not the only coven out there. If the only reason he's here is because he tried to kill a demon and didn't quite finish the job, it should be your duty to help him, not sacrifice him to it. It shouldn't have taken a dead woman issuing an invitation to bring us into it."
A dead woman? Did she mean Katrina? The evidence that his wife's continued existence, however ethereal, was more than a product of his own mind was a welcome relief amidst the other disorientations of the day. Particularly since Rutledge's meaning was neither opaque, nor a complete surprise to Ichabod. He had considered the idea, once or twice, that if they actually managed to defeat the Horseman of Death in one of their encounters, his life might be extinguished along with the demon's; it stood to reason that his former brethren had come to the logical, complimentary conclusion.
"Coercing someone into committing suicide doesn't actually take the blood off your hands, you know," Miss Mills added sharply, her gaze shifting to his as if aware of the thrust of his thoughts. "There is always another way."
Mr. Rutledge shook his head, the very picture of regretful resignation. "Perhaps if we had located him earlier, it might have been possible to seek an alternative... but even if they could be decoupled now, it would only free the demon to continue his rampage. Even a witch as powerful as you are rumoured to be, Miss Rosenberg, cannot stand against the Horseman of Death; not even with a Slayer at your side."
"We'll see about that," Miss Rosenberg replied, then turned to look at Ichabod directly. "You're Ichabod, right? Like I said, I'm here because your wife reached out; she was hoping I'd be able to help."
"We're pretty much on the side of not letting anybody get killed," the other stranger spoke up-- the one Mr. Rutledge had referred to by the somewhat alarming appellation 'Slayer'. "So we're willing to give it a try. Are you good with that? Or should we just leave you to sit here and let this asshole guilt trip you some more?"
Miss Mills made an amused, indelicate sound at that odd collection of modern phrases; Ichabod glanced between the unfamiliar women and his partner once more as he parsed their meaning, then pushed his chair deliberately back from the table and stood.
"I am at your disposal, ladies; my wife's recommendation, and my partner's evident approval, are more than enough to compel my grateful cooperation."
"Good," Miss Rosenberg said, expression brightening into a smile. Then she stepped forward, holding out a hand palm-uppermost. "Do you mind if I...?"
The spark of light he'd noted earlier was no longer in evidence; absent its presence, she looked quite ordinary, but he had recently had reason to learn what depths such a commonplace façade could conceal. He glanced once more at the Lieutenant, automatically seeking assurance, then cleared his throat and stepped forward, extending his own hand for the witch to grasp.
"Of course. What must I do?"
"Just wait," her companion answered, smiling warmly at Miss Rosenberg as the red-haired woman closed her eyes, an expression of intense concentration overcoming her features.
Rutledge had not attempted to interfere any further, though the depth of his frown betrayed his uneasiness with the proceedings; he too stood from the table as the moment lengthened, moving to check on his associates-- both the one slumped on the floor, and one that had apparently been positioned outside the door to the chamber. Both were unconscious, but apparently otherwise unhurt; a confirmation, if he'd yet needed one, of his rescuers' benevolence.
Finally, Miss Rosenberg opened her eyes again; he was startled to see that they had changed in colour, the native green of her irises shrouded in solid black. "Got him," she said in a fierce voice, then called aloud in somewhat butchered Latin, speaking words of summoning.
The air grew strangely disturbed at her words, whipping the candle-flames in a damply-scented breeze; at the same time, Ichabod felt a strange, painful tugging sensation deep within, as if something deeply rooted were being torn out of him. Finally, Miss Rosenberg gave a cry of triumph... and a figure in an antique British uniform, minus its head, abruptly appeared on the far side of the room.
Rutledge swore, scrambling for a weapon; Abbie drew her sidearm; Miss Rosenberg let go his hand to confront the intruder with outwardly-extended palms; and a sword appeared in the Slayer's hand. Before anyone could move to further react, however, the Slayer made a loud scoffing noise, straightening from her ready crouch to point the blade in the demon's direction.
"Wait a minute, back up the train. That's the Horseman of Death? A freaking Headless Horseman? In freaking Sleepy Hollow? Please tell me your friend here's not supposed to be that Ichabod Crane."
Ichabod took in her incredulous expression, distracted for a moment from the imminent threat, then glanced at his partner, only to find Abbie rolling her eyes at the woman. "Ix-nay on the egend-lay, okay? I've been trying to keep him from stumbling across a copy of the book; it's bad enough finding out it might have some basis in reality, I'm really not interested in his commentary on the characterization choices."
"Are you serious?" the Slayer replied, incredulously. "Fighting demons is one thing, but this is my childhood you're trampling all over, here."
"Don't talk to me about childhoods," Abbie replied with a grim shake of her head.
"We will be having words about this, Lieutenant," Ichabod said, irked by this new revelation; he'd had quite enough of people keeping secrets from him for his own good, thank you.
Fortunately, while they'd been distracted, Miss Rosenberg had been murmuring in butchered Latin once more; just as it occurred to him that he really ought to be paying more attention to their foe, the Horseman was already collapsing to the ground, limply sprawling upon the stone floor.
"Well, that was anticlimactic," the Slayer said. "Did you kill him, or what?"
"Not exactly; that really was the Horseman of Death, so it's not exactly killable," the witch grimaced. "Luckily, it needs a host body, so I was able to banish it. It'll probably be able to come back, but we are talking capital-A apocalypse here, so there'll be plenty of warning when it does. Just, you know." She turned to Miss Mills with an awkward shrug. "Maybe don't go breaking any mystery seals, or opening Purgatory, or anything in the meantime?"
"You don't need to tell me twice," Miss Mills replied with a wide-eyed shudder. She walked cautiously over to prod the infernal corpse, then sighed and reholstered her weapon. "I don't suppose you have a business card or something, so we can call you the next time we get stuck? Because I don't mind telling you, I'd rather not have to wait for the ghost telephone if this happens again."
"Sure," Willow replied, her natural sunny mood-- and attendant green gaze-- returning as she dug a rectangle of paper from a pocket of her skirt. "I'm Willow, and this is Kennedy-- we work for the ISWC. There used to be just a few of us, but we're all over the country now. We haven't had time to catch up with all the isolated areas that used to be other under mystical management yet-- sorry about that-- but we do have a constant presence in New York City, so. Whenever you call, someone'll answer, even if it isn't me."
The Lieutenant took the slip of paper, still smiling; Mr. Rutledge, Ichabod was bemused to note, looked rather more put out than that than he had even at the women's arrival.
"Perhaps we might find a more conducive environment for further discussion, and libations with which to celebrate?" he suggested, turning his back on the Mason.
Some other time, he might ask about the handmade book Rutledge had left on the table, or any records the Freemasons might have kept referencing his wife's coven, but for the moment, discretion seemed to be the better part of valour.
"Sounds good to me," Kennedy said, glancing slyly at the Lieutenant. "Because you know I've got a lot of questions."
Abbie groaned, and cast her eyes to the heavens; Willow laughed, linking elbows with her companion, and led the way toward the door.
Apocalypse yet in the offing or not, Ichabod had the feeling their struggle had just lightened a great deal.
(x-posted on twistedshorts - one | two | three - and on AO3)
