Beautiful Darkness

Consequences

We tried to keep up with Ridley, who was weaving in and out of the trees. Liv was behind her, consulting the map or her selenometer constantly. She didn't trust Ridley any more than the rest of us did.

There was something bothering me. A part of me believed her. Maybe she really cared about Lena. It was unlikely, but if there was a chance Ridley was telling the truth, I had to follow her. I owed Lena a debt I could never repay.

I didn't know if there was a future for us. If Lena would ever again be the girl I fell in love with. But it didn't matter.

The Arclight was heating up inside my pocket. I pulled it out, expecting to see a pool of iridescent color, but the surface was black. Now all I could see was my reflection. The Arclight seemed more than broken. It had become completely random.

Ridley's eyes widened when she saw it, and she stopped walking for the first time in a long while. "Where'd you get that, Short Straw?"

"Marian gave it to me." I didn't want Ridley to know it had been my mother's, or who had given it to her.

"Well, that might even the odds a little. I don't think you can get my Uncle Hunting in there, but maybe one of the members of his pack."

"I'm not exactly sure how to use it." I almost didn't tell her, but it was true.

Ridley lifted an eyebrow. "Little Miss Know-It-All couldn't tell you?" Liv's cheeks flushed. Ridley took her time unwrapping a stick of pink gum and folded it into her mouth. "You have to touch him with it." She stepped closer to me. "Which means you have to get close."

"Whatever." Link pushed past her. "There are two of us. We can swing it."

Liv tucked her pencil behind her ear. She had been taking notes. "Link might be right. I wouldn't want to get near any of them. But if we had no choice, it would be worth a try."

"Then you have to lay the Cast. You know, speak the incantation and all." Ridley was leaning against a tree, smirking. She knew we didn't know the Cast. Lucille was sitting at Ridley's feet, studying her.

"I'm guessing you aren't going to tell us what it is."

"How should I know? It's not like there are a lot of those things around."

Liv spread the map out in her lap, carefully smoothing it. "We're going the right way. If we keep going east, this path should eventually lead to the shore." She pointed to a dense cluster of trees.

"Where? That forest?" Link looked dubious.

"Don't be scared, Hot Rod. I'll take Hansel, you take Gretel." Ridley winked at Link, like she still had power over him. Which she did, but it had nothing to do with her gifts as a Siren.

"I'll be all right on my own. Why don't you have another piece a gum?" Link pushed past her.

Maybe Ridley was like chicken pox; you could only catch it once.

"How long can it take to pee?" Ridley threw a rock in the direction of a clump of bushes, anxious to get going again.

"I can hear you." Link's voice came from the bushes.

"Good to know at least some of your bodily functions are working."

Liv looked at me and rolled her eyes. The longer we walked, the more Link and Ridley went at it.

"You're not makin' it any easier."

"You need me to come back there and help you?"

"You're all talk, Rid," Link called from behind the bushes. She started to get up, and Liv looked shocked. Ridley smiled and sat down again, satisfied.

I studied the sphere in my hands as the color changed from black to an iridescent green. Nothing useful, just colors that seemed on perpetual overload. Maybe Link was right. Maybe I had broken it.

Ridley looked confused, or interested. It was hard to tell. "What's with the light?"

"It's like a compass. It lights up if we're going the right way." At least, it used to.

"Hmm. I didn't know they did that." She was bored again.

"I'm sure there are a lot of things you don't know." Liv smiled innocently.

"Careful, or I might convince you to take a swim in the river."

I watched the Arclight. There was something different about it. The light began to pulse with a brightness and speed I hadn't seen since we left Bonaventure Cemetery. I turned to show Liv. "L, look at this."

Ridley's head whipped toward me, and I froze.

I had called Liv "L."

There was only one L in my life. Even though Liv didn't notice, Ridley did. Her eyes were wild as she sucked on her lollipop. She was staring right at me, and I could feel my will slipping away. I dropped the Arclight, and it rolled across the mossy forest floor.

Liv crouched over the Arclight, sitting on her heels. "That's strange. Why do you suppose it's flashing green again? Another visit from Amma, Arelia, and Twyla?"

"It's probably a bomb." I heard Link's voice, but I couldn't say a word. I dropped to the ground at Ridley's feet. It had been a while since she had flexed her Siren powers on me. I had a fleeting thought before my face hit the mud. Either Link was right, and he was immune to her now, or she was really holding back. If that was true, it was something new for her.

"If you hurt my cousin ... if you so much as think about hurting my cousin, you'll spend the rest of your miserable life as my slave. Understand, Short Straw?"

My head lifted involuntarily and twisted, which made my neck feel like it was about to snap. My eyes forced themselves open, and I was staring into Ridley's glowing yellow eyes. They were burning so bright, I was getting dizzy.

"Stop that." I heard Liv's voice and felt the weight of my body slam against the ground before I regained control of it. "For goodness sake, Ridley, don't be stupid."

Liv and Ridley were standing face to face. Liv's arms were folded across her chest. Ridley held the lollipop between the two of them. "Settle down, Poppins. Short Straw and I are friends."

"It doesn't look that way to me." Liv's voice was rising. "Don't forget, we're the ones risking our lives to save Lena." Their faces were lit with flashes of colored light. The Arclight was going wild, pulsing color through the trees.

"Don't get your knickers in a twist, Mate." Ridley's eyes were steely.

Liv's were dark. "Don't be a bloody fool. If Ethan doesn't care about Lena, then what are we doing in the middle of these godforsaken woods?"

"Good question, Keeper. I know what I'm doing here. But if you don't care about Boyfriend, what's your excuse?" Ridley was standing inches from Liv, but Liv didn't back down.

"What am I doing here? The Southern Star has vanished, a Cataclyst is calling a moon out of time at the mythical Great Barrier, and you're asking what I'm doing here? Are you serious?"

"So this has nothing to do with Boyfriend?"

"Ethan, who is, in fact, no one's boyfriend, doesn't know anything about the Caster world." Liv wasn't rattled. "He's in over his head. He needs a Keeper."

"Actually, you're a Keeper-in-Training. Asking you for help is like asking a nurse to perform open-heart surgery. And according to your job description, you're not supposed to get involved. So the way I see it, you aren't a very good Keeper." Ridley was right. There were rules, and Liv was breaking them.

"That may be true, but I am an excellent astronomer. And without my readings, we wouldn't be able to use this map at all, or find the Great Barrier, or Lena."

The Arclight went cold in my hand. It was completely black again.

"Did I miss somethin'?" Link stepped out of the bushes, zipping his fly. The girls stared at him as I pulled myself up out of the mud. "Sweet tea in the toilet. I always miss the good stuff."

"What --" Liv tapped on her selenometer. "Something's wrong. The dials are going crazy."

Beyond the trees, a crashing noise echoed through the forest. Hunting must have caught up with us. Then I had another thought, fleeting, but it didn't make me feel any less guilty.

Maybe it was someone else, someone who didn't like us following her. Someone who could control things in the natural world.

"Go!"

The crashing grew louder. Without warning, the trees on either side collapsed in front of me. I backed away. The last time trees had fallen in front of me, it hadn't been an accident.

Lena! Is that you?

A few feet around us, great moss-covered oaks and white pines ripped up out of the mud, roots and all, crashing back to the ground.

Lena, don't!

Link stumbled toward Ridley. "Unwrap a sucker, Babe."

"I told you not to call me Babe."

For the first time in hours, I could see the sky. Only now it was dark. The black clouds of Caster magic had rolled in over us. Then I felt something, from far away.

More like, I heard something.

Lena.

Ethan, run!

It was her voice, the voice that had been silent for so long. But if Lena was telling me to run, who was tearing the trees out of the ground?

L, what's happening?

I couldn't hear her answer. There was only darkness, those Caster clouds rushing at us like they were chasing us. Until I saw the clouds for what they were.

"Look out!" I pulled Liv backward and pushed Link toward Ridley just in time. We fell into the brush as a shower of broken pines came falling from the sky like rain. The branches flattened into a great pile exactly where we had been standing. Dust stung my eyes, and I couldn't see anything. The dirt caught in my throat as I coughed.

Lena's voice was gone, but I heard something else. A humming sound, as if we'd stumbled across the hive of a thousand bees, all looking to kill for their queen.

The dust was so thick, I could barely make out the shapes around me. Liv was lying next to me, bleeding above one eye. Ridley was whimpering, huddled around Link, who was pinned by a massive tree branch. "Wake up, Shrinky Dink. Wake up."

As I crawled toward them, Ridley shrank back. The look on her face was pure terror. Only she wasn't looking at me. She was looking at something behind me.

The humming sound grew louder. I felt the burning cold of Caster darkness on the back of my neck. When I turned around, the massive pile of pine needles that had almost buried us had formed some kind of bonfire. The pyramid of needles created a pyre, a giant burning platform pointing up into the black clouds. But the flames weren't red, and they didn't produce heat. They were as yellow as Ridley's eyes, and they emitted only cold, sorrow, and fear.

Ridley's whimpering grew louder. "She's here."

I looked up as a stone slab emerged from the hissing yellow flames of the pyre. A woman lay on top of the rock. She looked almost peaceful, like a dead saint about to be carried through the streets. But she was no saint.

Sarafine.

Her eyes jerked open, and her lips curved into a cold smile. She stretched, like a cat waking from a nap, then rose to stand on the stone. From down below where we stood, she might as well have been fifty feet tall.

"Were you expecting someone else, Ethan? I can understand the confusion. You know what they say. Like mother, like daughter. In this case, more and more every day now."

My heart was pounding. I could see Sarafine's red lips, her long black hair. I turned away. I didn't want to see her face, the face that looked so much like Lena's. "Get away from me, witch."

Ridley was still crying, huddled next to Link, rocking back and forth like a madwoman.

Lena? Can you hear me?

Sarafine's haunting voice rose over the flames, and she was there again, standing at the top of the fire. "I'm not here for you, Ethan. I'll leave you for my darling daughter. She's grown up so much this year, hasn't she? There's nothing like watching your child reach her full potential. Really makes a mother proud."

I watched the flames crawl up her legs. "You're wrong. Lena's not like you."

"I think I've heard that somewhere before -- on Lena's birthday, perhaps. Except then you believed it, and now you're lying. You know you've lost her. She can't change what was meant to be."

The flames were at her waist. She had the perfect features of the Duchannes women, but they seemed disfigured on Sarafine. "Maybe Lena can't change it, but I can. I'll do whatever I have to do to protect her."

Sarafine smiled, and I cringed. Her smile was so much like Lena's, or how Lena's smile seemed lately. As the flames moved up her chest, she disappeared.

"So strong and so much like your mother. Her last words were something like that. Or were they?" I heard a whisper in my ear. "You see, I've forgotten, because it didn't matter."

I froze. Sarafine was standing right next to me now, still wreathed in flames. I knew it wasn't an earthly fire, though, because the closer she came, the colder I felt.

"Your mother didn't matter. Her death was neither noble nor important. It was simply something I felt like doing at the time. It meant nothing." The flames rose to her neck and leaped up, consuming her body. "Just like you."

I reached for her throat. I wanted to tear it out. But my hand slipped through her, into the air. There was nothing there. She was an apparition. I wanted to kill her and I couldn't even touch her.

Sarafine laughed. "You think I would waste my time coming here in the flesh, Mortal?" She turned to Ridley, who was still rocking, with her hands clamped over her mouth. "Amusing, don't you think, Ridley?" Sarafine raised her hand and flung open her fingers.

Ridley rose to her feet, her hands clinging to her own throat. I watched as the spikes of Ridley's sandals rose, hovering above the ground as her face turned purple and she choked herself. Her blond hair hung down from her body, like a lifeless doll.

Sarafine's ghostly form dissolved into Ridley's body. Ridley glowed with yellow light -- her skin, her hair, her eyes. The light was so bright, she had no pupils at all. Even in the darkness of the forest, I had to shield my face. Ridley's head jerked up, like a marionette's, and she started to speak.

"My power is growing, and soon the Seventeenth Moon will be upon us, called out of time, as only a mother can. I decide when the sun sets. I have moved stars for my child, and she will Claim herself and join me. Only my daughter could block out the Sixteenth Moon, and only I can raise the Seventeenth. There are no others like us, not in either of our worlds. We are the beginning and the end." Ridley's body collapsed back onto the ground, like an empty sack.

The Arclight was burning in my pocket. I hoped Sarafine couldn't sense it. I remembered the flashing -- the Arclight tried to warn me. I should have paid attention.

"You betrayed us, Ridley. You're a traitor. The Father is not as forgiving as I am." The Father. Sarafine could only be talking about one person -- the father of the Ravenwood line of Blood Incubuses, the father who started it all. Abraham.

Sarafine's voice echoed over the sound of the flames. "You will be judged, but I will not deny him the pleasure. You were my responsibility, and now you're my shame. I think it's only fitting that I leave you with a parting gift." She raised her arms high above her head. "Since you are so intent on helping these Mortals, from this moment forward you will live as a Mortal and die as one. Your powers have been returned to the Dark Fire from which they were born."

Ridley bolted upright and screamed, her pain echoing through the forest. Then it was gone -- the fallen trees, the fire, Sarafine -- everything. The forest was just as it had been a few minutes before. Green and dark, full of pines and oaks and black mud. Every tree, every branch, was back in place, as if nothing had happened.

Liv was pouring water from a plastic bottle into Ridley's mouth. Liv's face was still muddy and bleeding, but she seemed okay. Ridley, on the other hand, was as white as a ghost.

"That was incredibly powerful magic. An apparition able to possess a Dark Caster." Liv shook her head. I touched the blood above her eye, and she winced. "And Cast at the same time, if what she said about Ridley's powers is true." I looked at Ridley doubtfully. It was hard to imagine Ridley without her Power of Persuasion. "In any event, Ridley won't be quite right, not for some time." Liv doused part of her sweatshirt with water and wiped Ridley's face. "I didn't realize the chance she was taking by coming here. She must really care about all of you."

"Not all of us," I said, trying to help Liv prop Ridley up. Ridley coughed out the water and pulled her hand across her mouth, smearing her pink lipstick. She looked like a cheerleader who had been dunked at the school fair one too many times. She tried to speak. "Link. Is he ...?"

I was kneeling next to him. The tree limb that had fallen on him had disappeared, but Link was still moaning in pain. It seemed impossible that he was hurt, that any of us were, since there was no sign of what had happened here -- no fallen trees, not a twig out of place. But Link's arm was purple and about twice its normal size, and his pants were ripped.

"Ridley?" Link opened his eyes.

"She's fine. We're all fine." I ripped open his pant leg even more. His knee was bleeding.

Link tried to laugh. "What're you lookin' at?"

"Your ugly face." I leaned over him, watching to see if his eyes could focus. He was going to be okay.

"You're not gonna kiss me, are you?"

Right then, I was so relieved I almost could have.

"Pucker up."