Beautiful Redemption
Page 61

I didn’t blame her.
Uncle Macon was, too, even if he wouldn’t admit it. He was scouring every journal and scrap of paper he could find for references to other places where Abraham could have hidden the Book.
That’s why I couldn’t tell them what we were doing. We already knew how Liv felt about the idea of trading John for the Book. And Uncle Macon wasn’t going to trust Ridley. Instead, I told them I wanted to visit Ethan’s grave, and John volunteered to go with me.
Link was waiting for John and me back at the cemetery. The sky was dark now, and I could barely make out where a crow circled high in the air above us, shrieking, as we made our way toward the oldest part of His Garden of Perpetual Peace.
I shivered. That crow had to be some sort of omen. But there was no way of knowing which kind. Either things were going to go well, and I would end the day with The Book of Moons and a chance at getting Ethan back, or I’d fail and lose John in the process.
John Breed wasn’t the love of my life, but he was the love of someone’s life. And John and I had spent more than a few dark months together, when he and Rid seemed like the only people I could talk to. But John wasn’t the same guy he was back then. He had changed, and he didn’t deserve to go back to a life with Abraham. I wouldn’t have wished that on anyone.
What had I become?
bargaining with a life
that isn’t mine
isn’t a bargain
misery
doesn’t
come
cheap
John wouldn’t look at me. Even Link kept his eyes fixed on the path ahead of us. I felt like they were disappointed in me for being so selfish.
I was disappointed in myself.
It is what it is, and I am what I am. I’m no better than Ridley. I only want what I want.
Either way, it didn’t stop my feet from walking.
I tried not to think about it as I followed Link and John through the trees. While most of His Garden of Perpetual Peace was in the process of being restored to its pre–Vex attack state, the same wasn’t true of the older part of the graveyard. I hadn’t seen it since the night the earth cracked open, covering these hills with decomposing corpses and severed bones. Though the bodies were gone, the ground was still overturned, huge sinkholes replacing the graves that had surrounded generations of Wates since before the Civil War. Even if Ethan wasn’t here.
Thank God.
“This blows.” Link trudged up the hill with his garden shears in hand. “But don’t worry. I got your back. He’s not going to take you off to creepy-old-guy-land. Not without a fight. Not with these babies.”
John shoved Link to the side. “Put those things away, rookie. You won’t be able to get close enough to Hunting to clip the grass around his feet. And if Abraham sees them, he’ll use them to slit your throat without even touching them.”
Link shoved John back, and I ducked to avoid being knocked down the hill, as collateral damage. “Yeah, well, they helped me out on the way to that guy Obidias’ place when I took out that chicken-fried bat guy. Just don’t get me killed, Caster Boy.”
“Hold up a second.” John, now serious, stopped walking and turned to both of us. “Abraham is no joke. You have no idea what he’s capable of—I’m not sure anyone does. Stay out of the way and let me handle him. You’re backup, in case Hunting or your girlfriend gives us trouble.”
“Rid’s on our side, remember?” I reminded him.
“At least she’s supposed to be. And she’s not my girlfriend.” Link clenched his jaw.
“In my experience, the only side Ridley’s ever on is her own.” John stepped over a broken statue of a praying angel, her hands cracked at the wrists. All the broken angels around here were starting to feel like a bad omen.
Link looked annoyed, but he didn’t say anything. He didn’t seem to like it when anyone but him criticized Ridley. I wondered if things could ever really be over between them.
He and John navigated around the broken caskets and tree limbs, reaching an enormous sinkhole just beyond the old Honeycutt crypt. I did my best to keep up, but they were Incubuses, so there was nothing I could do, short of Casting an Incubus-cloning spell.
But soon it didn’t matter, because we had nowhere left to go.
Abraham was waiting for us.
Either we had walked right into his trap or he had walked right into ours. It was almost time to find out.
Abraham Ravenwood was standing on the far side of the sinkhole. Wearing a long black coat and stovepipe hat and leaning against a splintered tree, he looked bored, as if this was an annoying errand.
The Book of Moons was tucked under his arm.
I breathed a sigh of relief. “He brought it,” I said quietly.
“We don’t have it yet,” Link said under his breath.
Wearing a black turtleneck and a leather jacket, Hunting stood behind his great-great-great-grandfather. He was blowing smoke rings at Ridley. She coughed, waving the smoke away from her red dress, and gave her uncle a dirty look.
There was something disturbing about seeing her dressed in red, standing a few feet away from two Blood Incubuses. I hoped John was wrong and Ridley really was on our side—for Link’s sake as much as my own.
We both loved her. And you couldn’t control who you loved, even if you wanted to. That had been Genevieve’s problem with Ethan Carter Wate. It had been Uncle Macon’s problem with Lila, Link’s with Ridley. Probably even Ridley’s with Link.