Beautiful Darkness
Page 114

"Lena hates herself and thinks she's going Dark." Ridley glanced at me. "She wanted to go to a place where she wouldn't hurt anyone. John promised he'd be there for her when no one else would."
"I would have been there for her." My voice echoed off the rock walls surrounding us.
Ridley looked right at me. "Even if she went Dark?"
It all made sense. Lena was guilt-ridden and tormented, and John was there with all the answers, in ways I couldn't be.
I thought about how long he and Lena had been alone together, how many nights, how many dark Tunnels. John wasn't a Mortal. Her touch wouldn't kill him with its intensity. John and Lena could do anything they wanted -- all the things Lena and I could never do. An image crept into my mind, the two of them curled up together in the darkness. The way Liv and I had been in Savannah.
"There's something else." I had to tell him. "Sarafine didn't do this alone. Abraham has been helping her."
Something passed across Macon's face, but I couldn't pin it down. "Abraham. That's no surprise."
"The visions have changed, too. When I was in them, it seemed like Abraham could see me."
Macon lost his footing, nearly tripping me. "Are you certain?"
I nodded. "He said my name."
Macon looked at me the way he had the night of the winter formal, Lena's first dance. As if he felt sorry for me, the things I had to do, the responsibilities that fell to me. He never understood I didn't care.
Macon kept talking, and I tried to focus. "I had no idea things had progressed so quickly. You must exercise extreme caution, Ethan. If Abraham has established a connection with you, then he can see you as clearly as you can see him."
"You mean, outside of the visions?" The idea of Abraham watching my every move wasn't a comforting thought.
"At this point, I don't have an answer. But until I do, be careful."
"I'll get right on that. After we fight an army of Incubuses to rescue Lena." The more we talked about it, the more impossible it felt.
Macon whipped around to face Ridley. "Is this boy John involved with Abraham?"
"I don't know. Abraham's the one who convinced Sarafine she could raise the Seventeenth Moon." Ridley looked miserable and exhausted and filthy.
"Ridley, I need you to tell me everything you know."
"I wasn't that high on the food chain, Uncle Macon. I never even met him. Everything I know came from Sarafine." It was hard to believe Ridley was the same girl who almost convinced my father to jump off a balcony. She looked so sad and broken.
"Sir?" Liv's voice was tentative. "Something's been bothering me ever since we met John Breed. We have thousands of Caster and Incubus family trees in the Lunae Libri, hundreds of years of history. How is it that this one person comes along out of nowhere, and there's no record of him? Of John Breed, I mean."
"I was wondering precisely the same thing." Macon started walking again, leaning heavily to one side. "But he's not an Incubus."
"Not strictly speaking," Liv answered.
"He's as strong as one." I kicked at the rocks under my feet.
"Whatever. I could take him." Link shrugged.
Ridley fell into step next to us. "He doesn't feed, Uncle M. I would have seen it."
"Interesting."
Liv nodded. "Very."
"Olivia, if you don't mind --" He held out his arm to her. "Have there been any cases of hybrids on your side of the Atlantic?"
Liv slipped her shoulder underneath Macon's arm, taking my place. "Hybrids? I should hope not...."
As Liv continued along the rocks with Macon, I lagged behind. I pulled Lena's necklace out of my pocket. I let the charms roll around in my palm, but they were tangled and meaningless without her. The necklace was heavier than I imagined, or maybe it was the weight of my conscience.
We stood on a cliff above the entrance to the cave, surveying the scene. The sea cave was huge, formed completely from black volcanic rock. The moon was so low, it looked like it could drop right out of the sky. A pack of Incubuses guarded the mouth of the cave as waves crashed on the black rocks in front of them, sending shallow rushes of water across their boots.
The moonlight wasn't the only thing attracted to the cave. A host of Vexes, swirling black shadows, flowed up from the water and down from the sky. They were cycling through the cave's entrance and the opening in the ceiling, forming some kind of supernatural waterwheel. I watched as one Vex rose up from the water, a whirling shadow reflected perfectly in the sea below.
Macon pointed to their ghostly forms. "Sarafine is using them to fuel the Dark Fire."
An army. What chance did we have? It was worse than I thought, and the possibility of saving Lena more hopeless. At least we had Macon. "What are we going to do?"
"I'm going to try to help you get inside, but from there you'll have to find Lena. You are the Wayward, after all." Help us get inside? Was he joking?
"You're making it sound like you aren't going with us."
Macon slid down the rock until he was sitting on the overhang. "That assumption is correct."
I didn't try to hide my anger. "Are you kidding? You said it yourself. You think we're gonna save Lena without you -- a Siren who's lost her powers, a Mortal who never had any, a librarian, and me? Against a pack of Blood Incubuses and enough Vexes to take down the Air Force? Seriously? Tell me you have some kind of a plan."