Enchanted

Ichabod lay tucked warm in his bed under a pile of covers in the small hours of the night. Abbie had showed him the 'thermostat' but he was uncomfortable adjusting it, so had left the settings to summertime temperatures. The cabin was exceptionally cold after a hard frost outside.

He and Abbie had put in a long night of rum drinking after the tragic information he received from Abbie's vision in the haunted house. They regaled in happier stories from both their lifetimes instead of dwelling on the oppressive present and almost didn't make it home to their respective habitations.

In the darkness, no one saw the wisp of a Shade creep through the floorboard of the old cabin. It snaked across the planks like ebony serpent intent on its victim. Approaching Ichabod's bed silently, the wraith reared up before him sending out tendrils that resembled hands and loosely, a body.

Golden light was visible to it; the life force spell that Katrina had placed on Ichabod long ago enveloped him in a halo of faint suffused light but was very bright over his torso. The place Katrina had lain the Bible on his chest, where the Horseman had cleaved open his ribs glowed so brightly the Shade had to squint its "eyes". If the evil above him were able, it would have hissed in delight. Moloch had promised it this life force spell all to itself. Pulling the covers back with a wave of a cloudlike hand, it exposed the heavily sleeping Ichabod. Like a lover undressing their partner, the Shade unlaced the top of Ichabod's shirt to expose the axe scar. The golden light was almost too much for the Shade to handle, the pureness and beauty of the spell was enthralling yet repulsive to it.

Finding the stitching of her spell, the Shade plucked at one thread and it broke in an exquisite burst of light. Power flooded through the evil spirit and Ichabod stirred as if in pain. The wraith paused as the rush of power enveloped it and then plucked another thread that held Ichabod's ancient wound healed. Ichabod sat up gasping, clutching his chest. The wraith evaporated before his eyes could set themselves on the malevolent presence.

In the dark, Ichabod felt his chest, a tendril of memory from the battle with the Horseman flickering over his mind. The fumes of rum also swirling in his brain made his judgment muddy as to what was just touching him if anything at all. He didn't recall having his shirt undone, or being uncovered in the chilly air, but it could have been a bad dream. His noticed his hand felt wet and something was running down his chest. Getting up from bed, his feet hit the icy floor and his toes recoiled for a moment. With a shiver, he padded to the rest room and paused before remembering to flick on a light. When he did, he gazed into the mirror, his eyes squinting in the sudden brightness and his hangover pounding in his head.

With some alarm, he examined his chest. The white scar, a neat line eighteen inches long from the top of his left shoulder to almost his right hip was bright in the artificial light but what attracted his attention was the trickle of blood oozing down from his shoulder at the beginning of the scar. What in the Lords name did this? He thought hazily from his sleepy fog and rum. It didn't hurt as much as it looked odd to him, but there was a strange feeling of dread over him. Taking a towel and wetting it with water he dabbed at the blood. His skin was parted there, like the edges had never healed from the initial wound. Still more curious than alarmed, Ichabod applied what Abbie had described as a "band-aide" or modern form of wound dressing, over the laceration. Fumbling with the adhesive, it took him three tries to get one to stick.

Feeling better, and still woozy, Ichabod stumbled back off to bed and absently thought about asking Abbie how to work the thermostat in the morning. The Shade observed his prey from the corner, almost licking its nonexistent lips in anticipation of more feeding. Patience, came a voice in the creature's head. It was Moloch, Patience.