Beautiful Creatures

2.11

Family Reunion

Once my dad was safely in the hands of the reenactment medics, I couldn’t get back to the party fast enough. I pushed past the girls from Jackson, who had ditched jackets, and were looking skanky in their tank tops and baby tees, gyrating to the music of the Holy Rollers. Minus Link who, to his credit, was right on my heels. It was loud. Live band loud. Live ammo loud. So loud that I almost didn’t hear Larkin’s voice calling me.

“Ethan, over here!” Larkin was standing in the trees just past the reflective yellow rope that separated the Safe Zone from the You-Could-Get-Your-Butt-Shot-Off-If-You-Cross-This-Line Zone. What was he doing in the woods, past the Safe Zone? Why wasn’t he back at the house? I waved to him and he motioned me over, disappearing behind the rise. Usually jumping that rope would’ve been a tough choice, but not today. I had no choice but to follow him. Link was right behind me, stumbling, but still somehow keeping up with me, just the way it used to be.

“Hey, Ethan.”

“Yeah?”

“About Rid, I should’ve listened.”

“It’s okay, man. You couldn’t help it. I should’ve told you everything.”

“Don’t sweat it. I wouldn’t have believed you.”

The sound of gunfire echoed over our heads. We both ducked, instinctively.

“Hope those are blanks,” Link said nervously. “Wouldn’t it be crazy if my own dad shot me out here?”

“With my luck lately, it wouldn’t surprise me if he shot us both.”

We reached the top of the rise. I could see the thicket of brush, the oaks, and the smoke of the artillery field beyond us.

“We’re over here!” Larkin called, from the other side of the thicket. By the “we,” I could only assume he meant him and Lena, so I ran faster. Like Lena’s life depended on it, because for all I knew maybe it did.

Then I realized where we were. There was the archway to the garden at Greenbrier. Larkin and Lena were standing in the clearing, just beyond the garden, in the same place where we had dug up Genevieve’s grave a few weeks ago. A few feet behind them, a figure stepped out of the shadows and into the moonlight. It was dark, but the full moon was right over us.

I blinked. It was—It was—

“Mom, what the heck are you doin’ out here?” Link was confused.

Because his mom was standing in front of us, Mrs. Lincoln, my worst nightmare, or at least in my top ten. She looked strangely in—or out of—place, depending on how you looked at it. She was wearing ridiculous volumes of petticoats and the stupid calico dress that cinched her waist way too tightly. And she was standing right at Genevieve’s grave. “Now, now. You know how I feel about profanity, young man.”

Link rubbed his head. This made no sense at all, not to him, and not to me.

Lena, what’s happening?

Lena?

There was no response. Something was wrong.

“Mrs. Lincoln, are you okay?”

“Delightful, Ethan. Isn’t it a wonderful battle? And Lena’s birthday, too, she tells me. We’ve been waiting for you, at least, one of you.”

Link stepped closer. “Well, I’m here now, Mom. I’ll take you home. You shouldn’t be out past the Safe Zone. You’re gonna get your head blown off. You know what a bad shot Dad is.”

I grabbed Link’s arm, holding him back. There was something wrong, something about the way she was smiling at us. Something about the panicked look on Lena’s face.

What’s going on? Lena!

Why wasn’t she answering me? I watched as Lena pulled my mom’s ring out of her sweatshirt and grabbed it by the chain in her hand. I could see her lips move in the darkness. I could barely hear something, only a whisper, in the far corner of my mind.

Ethan, get out of here! Get Uncle Macon! Run!

But I couldn’t move. I couldn’t leave her.

“Link, Angel, you are such a thoughtful boy.”

Link? It wasn’t Mrs. Lincoln standing in front of us. It couldn’t be.

Mrs. Lincoln would no more call Wesley Jefferson Lincoln “Link” than she would streak through the streets naked. “Why you would use that ridiculous nickname when you have such a dignified name, I cannot imagine,” she’d say every time one of us accidentally called her house and asked for Link.

Link felt my hand on his arm and stopped. It was starting to register with him, too; I could see it on his face. “Mom?”

“Ethan, get out of here! Larkin, Link, somebody, go get Uncle Macon!” Lena was screaming. She couldn’t stop. She looked more frightened than I’d ever seen her. I ran toward her.

I could hear the sound of a shell being released from a cannon. Then a sudden flurry of gunfire.

My back slammed into something, hard. I felt my head crack and everything sort of went out of focus for a second.

“Ethan!” I could hear Lena’s voice, but I couldn’t move. I’d been shot. I was sure of it. I fought to stay conscious.

After a few seconds, my eyes came back into focus. I was on the ground, my back against a massive oak. The gunshot must have thrown me backward into the tree. I felt around to see where I’d been hit, but there was no blood. I couldn’t find the bullet’s point of entry. Link was a few feet away, propped awkwardly against another tree. He looked just as out of it as I felt. I got to my feet, stumbling forward toward Lena, but my face slammed right into something and I ended up back on the ground. It felt just like the time I had walked into a sliding glass door at the Sisters’ house.

I hadn’t been shot; this was something else. I’d been hit by a different kind of weapon.

“Ethan!” Lena was screaming.

I got up again and stepped forward slowly. There was a sliding glass door there all right, except this one was some kind of invisible wall encircling the tree and me. I banged on it and my fist smacked against it but it didn’t make a sound. I slammed my palms against it over and over. What else could I do? That’s when I noticed Link banging on his own invisible cage.

Mrs. Lincoln smiled at me, with a smile more wicked than anything Ridley could muster on her best day.

“Let them go!” Lena shrieked.

Out of nowhere, the sky opened up and rain literally poured out of the clouds, like it was being dumped from a bucket. Lena. Her hair was waving wildly. The rain turned to sleet and fell sideways, attacking Mrs. Lincoln from every direction. In a matter of seconds, we were all soaked to the bone.

Mrs. Lincoln, or whoever she was, smiled. There was something about her smile. She looked almost proud. “I’m not going to hurt them. I just want to give us some time to talk.” Thunder rumbled in the sky over her head. “I was hoping I would get a chance to see some of your talents. How I’ve regretted I wasn’t there to help you hone your gifts.”

“Shut up, witch.” Lena was grim. I had never seen her green eyes like this, the steely way they were set on Mrs. Lincoln. Flint hard. Resolute. Full of hate and anger. She looked like she wanted to rip Mrs. Lincoln’s head off, and she looked like she could do it.

I finally understood what Lena had been so worried about all year. She had the power to destroy. I had only seen the power to love. When you discovered you had both, who could figure out what to do with that?

Mrs. Lincoln turned to Lena. “Wait until you realize what you can really do. How you can manipulate the elements. It’s the true gift of a Natural, something we have in common.”

Something they had in common.

Mrs. Lincoln looked up at the sky, the rain running down beside her as if she was holding an umbrella. “Right now you’re making rain showers, but soon you’ll learn to control fire as well. Let me show you. How I do like playing with fire.”

Rain showers? Was she kidding? We were in the middle of a monsoon.

Mrs. Lincoln held up her palm and lightning sliced through the clouds, electrifying the sky. She held up three fingers. Lightning erupted, with the flick of every manicured nail. Once. Lightning struck the ground, kicking up the dirt, two feet away from where Link was trapped. Twice. Lightning burned through the oak behind me, cleaving the trunk neatly in half. A third time. Lightning struck Lena, who simply held up her own outstretched hand. The flash of electricity ricocheted off her, landing instead at Mrs. Lincoln’s feet. The grass around her started to smolder and burn.

Mrs. Lincoln laughed and waved her hand. The fires in the grass died out. She looked at Lena with a glint of pride. “Not bad. I’m happy to see the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.”

It couldn’t be.

Lena glared at her and turned up both palms, a protective stance. “Yeah? What do they say about the bad apple?”

“Nothing. No one has ever lived to say it.” Then Mrs. Lincoln turned to Link and me in her calico dress and miles of petticoats, with her hair braided down her back. She looked right at us, her golden eyes blazing. “I’m so sorry, Ethan. I hoped our first meeting would be under different circumstances. It’s not every day that you meet your daughter’s first boyfriend.”

She turned to Lena. “Or your daughter.”

I was right. I knew who she was, and what we were dealing with.

Sarafine.

A moment later, Mrs. Lincoln’s face, her dress, her whole body literally started to split down the middle. You could see the skin on either side pulling away like the crumpled wrapper of a candy bar. As her body split down the center, it started to fall like a coat being shrugged from someone’s shoulders. Underneath was someone else.

“I don’t have a mother,” Lena shouted.

Sarafine winced, as if she was trying to look hurt because she was Lena’s mother. It was an undeniable genetic truth. She had the same long, black, curly hair as Lena. Except, where Lena was frighteningly beautiful, Sarafine was simply frightening. Like Lena, Sarafine had long, elegant features, but instead of Lena’s beautiful green eyes, she had the same glowing yellow eyes as Ridley and Genevieve. And the eyes made all the difference.

Sarafine was wearing a dark green corseted velvet dress, kind of modern and Gothic and turn-of-the-century, all at the same time, and tall black motorcycle boots. She literally stepped out of Mrs. Lincoln’s body, which fused back together within seconds, as if someone had sewn up the seam. Leaving the real Mrs. Lincoln collapsed in the grass with her hoopskirt flipped up, revealing her knee-high support hose and her petticoats.

Link was in shock.

Sarafine straightened, shaking free of the weight, shuddering. “Mortals. That body was just insufferable, so awkward and uncomfortable. Stuffing its face every five minutes. Disgusting creatures.”

“Mom! Mom, wake up!” Link pounded his fists against what was obviously some kind of force field. No matter what a dragon she was, Mrs. Lincoln was Link’s dragon, and it must have been hard to see her tossed aside like a piece of inconsequential human trash.

Sarafine waved her hand. Link’s mouth was still moving, but he wasn’t making a sound. “That’s better. You’re lucky I didn’t have to spend all my time in your mother’s body over the last few months. If I had, you’d be dead by now. I can’t tell you the number of times I nearly killed you out of boredom at the dinner table, droning on about your stupid band.”

It all made sense now. The crusade against Lena, the Jackson Disciplinary Committee meeting, the lies about Lena’s school records, even the weird brownies on Halloween. How long had Sarafine been masquerading as Mrs. Lincoln?

In Mrs. Lincoln.

I had never really understood what we were up against until now. The Darkest Caster living today. Ridley seemed so harmless in comparison. No wonder Lena had been dreading this day for so long.

Sarafine looked back at Lena. “You may think you don’t have a mother, Lena, but if that’s true, it’s only because your grandmother and your uncle took you from me. I’ve always loved you.” It was disconcerting how Sarafine could move so easily from one set of emotions to another, from sincerity and regret to disgust and contempt, each emotion as hollow as the next.

Lena’s eyes were bitter. “Is that why you’ve been trying to kill me, Mother?”

Sarafine tried to look concerned, or maybe surprised. It was hard to tell because her expression looked so unnatural, so forced. “Is that what they told you? I was simply trying to make contact—to talk to you. If it hadn’t been for all their Bindings, my attempts would never have put you in any danger, a fact they knew. Of course, I understand their concern. I am a Dark Caster, a Cataclyst. But Lena, you know as well as anyone, I had no choice in that matter. It was decided for me. It doesn’t change the way I feel about you, about my only daughter.”

“I don’t believe you!” Lena spat. But she looked unsure of herself, even as she said it, like she wasn’t sure what to believe.

I checked my cell phone. 9:59. Two hours until midnight.

Link slumped against the tree, his head in his hands. I couldn’t look away from Mrs. Lincoln, lifeless in the grass. Lena was looking at her, too.

“She’s not, you know. Is she?” I had to know, for Link’s sake.

Sarafine tried to look sympathetic. But I could tell she was losing interest in Link and me, which wasn’t good for either of us. “She’ll return to her previously unappealing state soon. Nauseating woman. I’m not interested in her or the boy. I was only trying to show my daughter the true nature of Mortals. How easily they can be influenced, how vindictive they are.” She turned to Lena. “Just a few words from Mrs. Lincoln and look how easily this whole town turned on you. You don’t belong in their world. You belong with me.”

Sarafine turned to Larkin. “Speaking of unappealing states, Larkin, why don’t you show us those baby blues, I mean yellows?”

Larkin smiled and squeezed his eyes shut, reaching his arms over his head like he was stretching after a long nap. But when he opened his eyes again, something was different. He blinked wildly, and with each blink his eyes began to change. You could almost see the molecules rearranging. Larkin transformed, and there standing in his place was a pile of snakes. The snakes began to coil and climb onto each other, until Larkin emerged once again from the twisting heap. He held out his two rattlesnake arms that hissed and crawled back into his leather jacket until they became his hands. Then he opened his eyes. But instead of the green eyes I was used to seeing, Larkin stared back at us with the same golden eyes as Sarafine and Ridley. “Green never was my color. One of the perks of bein’ an Illusionist.”

“Larkin?” My heart sank. He was one of them, a Dark Caster. Things were worse than I thought.

“Larkin, what are you?” Lena looked confused, but only for a second. “Why?”

But the answer was staring right at us, in Larkin’s golden eyes. “Why not?”

“Why not? Oh, I don’t know, how about a little family loyalty?”

Larkin swiveled his head, as the thick gold chain around his neck writhed into a snake, tongue flickering against his cheek. “Loyalty’s not really my thing.”

“You betrayed everyone, your own mother. How can you live with yourself?”

He stuck out his tongue. The snake crawled into his mouth and disappeared. He swallowed. “It’s a whole lot more fun being Dark than Light, cousin. You’ll see. We are what we are. This is what I was destined to be. There’s no reason to fight it.” His tongue flickered, now forked, like the snake inside of him. “I don’t know why you’re so worked up about it. Look at Ridley. She’s havin’ a great time.”

“You’re a traitor!” Lena was losing control. Thunder rumbled over her head, and the rain intensified again.

“He’s not the only traitor, Lena.” Sarafine took a few steps toward Lena.

“What are you talking about?”

“Your beloved Uncle Macon.” Her voice was bitter and I could tell it wasn’t lost on Sarafine that Macon had all but stolen her daughter from her.

“You’re lying.”

“He’s the one who has been lying to you all this time. He let you believe your fate was predetermined—that you didn’t have a choice. That tonight, on your sixteenth birthday, you will be Claimed Light or Dark.”

Lena shook her head stubbornly. She raised her palms. Thunder rumbled, and the rain began to pour, in thick sheets and torrents. She shouted to be heard. “That’s what happens. It happened to Ridley and Reece and Larkin.”

“You’re right, but you’re different. Tonight, you will not be Claimed. You will have to Claim yourself.”

The words hung in the air. Claim yourself. Like the words themselves had the power to stop time.

Lena’s face was ashen. For a second, I thought she was going to pass out. “What did you say?” she whispered.

“You have a choice. I’m sure your uncle didn’t tell you that.”

“That’s impossible.” I could barely hear Lena’s voice in the shrieking wind.

“A choice afforded to you because you are my daughter, the second Natural born into the Duchannes family. I may be a Cataclyst now, but I was the first Natural born into our family.”

Sarafine paused, then repeated a verse:

“‘The First will be Black

But the Second may choose to turn back.’”

“I don’t understand.” Lena’s legs gave out from under her and she fell to her knees in the mud and tall grass, her long black hair dripping around her.

“You’ve always had a choice. Your uncle has always known that.”

“I don’t believe you!” Lena threw up her arms. Clumps of earth ripped up from the ground between them, swirling into the storm. I shielded my eyes as bits of dirt and rock flew at us from every direction.

I tried to shout over the storm, but Lena could barely hear me. “Lena, don’t listen to her. She’s Dark. She doesn’t care about anyone. You told me that yourself.”

“Why would Uncle Macon hide the truth from me?” Lena looked directly at me, as if I was the only one who would know the answer. But I didn’t know. There was nothing I could say.

Lena slammed her foot against the ground in front of her. The ground began to tremble, then roll beneath my feet. For the first time ever, an earthquake had hit Gatlin County. Sarafine smiled. She knew Lena was losing control, and she was winning. The electrical storm in the sky flashed over our heads.

“That’s enough, Sarafine!” Macon’s voice echoed across the field. He appeared out of nowhere. “Leave my niece alone.”

Tonight, in the moonlight, he looked different. Less like a man and more like what he was. Something else. His face looked younger, leaner. Ready for a fight. “Are you referring to my daughter? The daughter you stole from me?” Sarafine straightened and began to twist her fingers, like a soldier checking his arsenal before a battle.

“As if she ever meant anything to you,” Macon said calmly. He smoothed his jacket, impeccable as usual. Boo burst out of the bushes behind him, as if he’d been running to catch up. Tonight, Boo looked exactly like what he was—an enormous wolf.

“Macon. I feel honored, except I hear I missed the party. My own daughter’s sixteenth birthday. But that’s all right. There’s always the Claiming tonight. We’ve a couple hours yet, and I wouldn’t miss that for the world.”

“Then I suppose you will be disappointed, as you’re not invited.”

“Pity. Since I’ve invited someone myself, and he’s dying to see you.” She smiled and fluttered her fingers. As quickly as Macon had materialized, another man appeared, leaning against a willow trunk, where no one had been standing a moment before.

“Hunting? Where did she dig you up?”

He looked like Macon, but taller and a little younger, with slick jet-black hair and the same pallid skin. But where Macon resembled a Southern gentleman from another time, this man looked fiercely stylish. Dressed in all black, a turtle-neck, jeans, and a leather bomber, he looked more like a movie star you’d see on the cover of a tabloid rag than Macon’s Cary Grant. But one thing was obvious. He was an Incubus, too, and not—if there was such a thing—the good kind. Whatever Macon was, Hunting was something else.

Hunting cracked what must have passed for a smile, to his kind. He began to circle Macon. “Brother. It’s been a long time.”

Macon didn’t return the smile. “Not long enough. I’m not surprised you’d take up with someone like her.”

Hunting laughed, raunchy and loud. “Who else would you expect me to take up with? A pack of Light Casters, like you did? It’s ridiculous. The idea that you can just walk away from what you are. From our family legacy.”

“I made a choice, Hunting.”

“A choice? Is that what you call it?” Hunting laughed again, circling closer to Macon. “More like a fantasy. You don’t get to choose what you are, Brother. You’re an Incubus. And whether you choose to feed on blood or not, you are still a Dark Creature.”

“Uncle Macon, is what she said true?” Lena wasn’t interested in Macon and Hunting’s little reunion.

Sarafine laughed, shrilly. “For once in your life, Macon, tell the girl the truth.”

Macon looked at her, stubbornly. “Lena, it’s not that simple.”

“But is it true? Do I have a choice?” Her hair was dripping, tangled in wet ringlets. Of course, Macon and Hunting were dry. Hunting smiled and lit a cigarette. He was enjoying this.

“Uncle Macon. Is it true?” Lena pleaded.

Macon looked at Lena, exasperated, and looked away. “You do have a choice, Lena, a complicated choice. A choice with grave consequences.”

All at once, the rain stopped completely. The air was perfectly still. If this was a hurricane, we were in the eye. Lena’s emotions churned. I knew what she was feeling, even without hearing her voice in my head. Happiness, because she had finally gotten the one thing she had always wanted, the choice to decide her own fate. Anger, because she had lost the one person she had always trusted.

Lena stared at Macon as if through new eyes. I could see the darkness creeping into her face. “Why didn’t you tell me? I’ve spent my whole life terrified I was going to go Dark.” There was another crash of thunder and the patter of rain began to fall again, like tears. But Lena wasn’t crying, she was angry.

“You do have a choice, Lena. But there are consequences. Consequences you could not understand, as a child. You can’t really begin to understand them now. Yet I have spent every day of my life pondering them, since before you were born. And as your dear mother knows, the conditions of this bargain were determined long ago.”

“What kind of consequences?” Lena looked at Sarafine skeptically. Cautiously. As if her mind was opening to new possibilities. I knew what she was thinking. If she couldn’t trust Macon—if he had been keeping this kind of secret all this time—maybe her mother was telling the truth.

I had to make her hear me.

Don’t listen to her! Lena! You can’t trust her—

But there was nothing. Our connection was broken in the presence of Sarafine. It was like she had cut the phone line between us.

“Lena, you can’t possibly understand the choice you are being pressured to make. What is at stake.”

The rain turned from a patter of tears to a screaming downpour.

“As if you could trust him. After a thousand lies.” Sarafine glared at Macon and turned to Lena. “I wish we had more time to talk, Lena. But you have to make the Choice, and I am Bound to explain the stakes. There are consequences; your uncle wasn’t lying about that.” She paused. “If you choose to go Dark, all the Light Casters in our family will die.”

Lena went pale. “Why would I ever agree to do that?”

“Because if you choose to go Light, all the Dark Casters and Lilum in our family will die.” Sarafine turned and looked at Macon. “And I do mean, all. Your uncle, the man who has been like a father to you, will cease to exist. You will destroy him.”

Macon disappeared and materialized in front of Lena, not even a second later. “Lena, listen to me. I am willing to make the sacrifice. That’s why I didn’t tell you. I didn’t want you to feel guilty about letting me go. I have always known what you would choose. Make the Choice. Let me go.”

Lena was reeling. Could she really destroy Macon if what Sarafine said was true? But if it was true, what other choice did she have? Macon was only one person, even though she loved him.

“There is something else I can offer,” Sarafine added.

“What could you possibly have to offer that would make me want to kill Gramma, Aunt Del, Reece, Ryan?”

Sarafine tentatively took a few steps toward Lena. “Ethan. We have a way the two of you can be together.”

“What are you talking about? We’re already together.” Sarafine cocked her head slightly and her eyes narrowed. Something passed across her golden eyes. Recognition.

“You don’t know. Do you?” Sarafine turned to Macon and laughed. “You didn’t tell her. Well, that’s not playing fair.”

“Know what?” Lena snapped.

“That you and Ethan can never be together, not physically. Casters and Lilum cannot be with Mortals.” She smiled, relishing the moment. “At least not without killing them.”