Beautiful Darkness

Flesh and Blood

Macon!"

It was all I could do not to fling my arms around him. He, on the other hand, looked at me calmly, brushing off some of the burnt grit from his dinner jacket. His eyes were unsettling. I was used to the glassy black eyes of Macon Ravenwood the Incubus, the eyes that regarded you with nothing but your own reflection. Now he was standing in front of me, as green-eyed as any Light Caster. Ridley stared, but didn't utter a sound. It wasn't often you saw Ridley speechless.

"Much obliged, Mr. Wate. Much obliged." Macon rolled his neck back and forth, uncoiling his arms, as if he was waking up from a long nap.

I bent down and picked up the Arclight, lying in the sandy dirt. "I was right. You were in the Arclight all along." I thought about how many times I'd held it in my hand and relied on it to guide me. How familiar the warmth of the stone had felt.

Link was having trouble coming to grips with the idea that Macon was alive, too. Without thinking, he reached out to touch him. Macon's hand flew up and grabbed Link's arm. Link flinched. "So sorry, Mr. Lincoln. I'm afraid my reflexes are a bit -- reflexive. I haven't gotten out much lately."

Link rubbed his arm. "You didn't have to do that, Mr. Ravenwood. I just wanted, you know, I thought you were --"

"What? A Sheer? A Vex, perhaps?"

Link shivered. "You tell me, sir."

Macon extended his arm. "Go ahead, then. Be my guest."

Link stuck out his hand tentatively, as if he was about to hold it over a candle on a birthday dare. His finger came within a millimeter of Macon's ragged jacket and stopped.

Macon sighed, rolling his eyes, and tapped Link's hand against his chest. "See? Flesh and blood. Something we have in common now, Mr. Lincoln."

"Uncle Macon?" Ridley crept up to him, finally ready to face him. "Is it really you?"

He looked deep into her blue eyes. "You've lost your powers."

She nodded, her eyes brimming with tears. "So have you."

"Some of them, yes, but I suspect I've gained others." He reached for her hand, but she pulled away. "It's impossible to tell. I'm still in the midst of it." He smiled. "Sort of like being a teenager. Twice."

"But your eyes are green."

Macon shook his head, flexing his hands. "True. My life as an Incubus is over, but the Transition is not complete. Although my eyes are those of a Light Caster, I can still feel Darkness within me. It has not been fully exorcised, yet."

"I'm not Transitioning. I'm nothing, a Mortal." She said the word like it was a curse, and the sadness in her voice was real. "I don't have a place in the Order of Things anymore."

"You're alive."

"I don't feel like myself. I'm powerless."

Macon weighed this in his mind, as if he was trying to determine her present state as much as she was. "You may be in the midst of a Transition of your own, unless this is one of my sister's more impressive tricks."

Ridley's eyes lit up. "Does that mean my powers might come back?"

Macon studied her blue eyes. "I think Sarafine is too cruel for that. I only meant that you might not be fully Mortal yet. Darkness does not leave us as easily as we would hope." Macon pulled her awkwardly to his chest, and she buried her face in his jacket, like a twelve-year-old. "It's not easy to be Light when you've been Dark. It's almost too much to ask of anyone."

I tried to quiet the torrent of questions racing through my mind, and settled for the first. "How?"

Macon turned from Ridley, his green eyes burning into me with their newfound light. "Could you be more specific, Mr. Wate? How am I not resting in twenty-seven thousand distinct fragments of ash in an urn within the Ravenwood family vault? How am I not rotting under a lemon tree in the sodden prestige of His Garden of Perpetual Peace? How did I come to find myself imprisoned in a small crystalline ball in your grimy pocket?"

"Two," I said without thinking.

"I beg your pardon?"

"There are two lemon trees over your grave."

"How very generous. One would have sufficed." Macon smiled tiredly, which was pretty remarkable, considering he'd spent four months in a supernatural prison the size of an egg. "Or are you perhaps wondering how is it that I died and you lived? Because I have to tell you, as far as hows go, that's a story your neighbors on Cotton Bend would be talking about for a lifetime."

"Except you didn't, sir. Die, I mean."

"You are correct, Mr. Wate. I am, and have always been, very much alive. In a manner of speaking."

Liv stepped forward tentatively. Even though she would probably never become a Keeper now, there was still a Keeper inside her seeking answers. "Mr. Ravenwood, may I ask you a question, sir?"

Macon tilted his head slightly. "Who might you be, dear? I imagine it was your voice I heard calling me from the Arclight."

Liv blushed. "It was, sir. My name is Olivia Durand, and I was training with Professor Ashcroft. Before ..." Her voice dwindled.

"Before you Cast the Ob Lucem Libertas?"

Liv nodded, ashamed. Macon looked pained, then smiled at her. "Then you gave up a great deal to save me, Miss Olivia Durand. I am in your debt, and, as I always repay my debts, I would be honored to answer a question. At the very least." Even after being trapped all those months, Macon was still a gentleman.

"Obviously, I know how you got out of the Arclight, but how did you get in? It's impossible for an Incubus to imprison himself, especially when, by all accounts, you were dead." Liv was right. He couldn't have done it alone. Someone had to have helped him, and the minute the ball released him, I knew who it was.

It was the one person we both loved as much as Lena, even in death.

My mother -- who had loved books and old things, nonconformity and history and complexity. Who had loved Macon so much she walked away when he asked her to, even though she couldn't bear to leave him. Even though a part of her never had.

"It was her, wasn't it?"

Macon nodded. "Your mother was the only one who knew about the Arclight. I gave it to her. Any Incubus would have killed her to destroy it. It was our secret, one of our last."

"Did you see her?" I looked out at the sea, blinking hard.

Macon's expression changed. I could see the pain in his face. "Yes."

"Did she seem ..." What? Happy? Dead? Herself?

"Beautiful as ever, your mother. Beautiful as the day she left us."

"I saw her, too." I thought about Bonaventure Cemetery and felt the familiar knot in my throat.

"But how is that possible?" Liv wasn't trying to challenge him, but she didn't understand. None of us did.

Macon's face was full of grief. It wasn't any easier for him to talk about my mom than it was for me. "I think you'll find the impossible is possible more often than we think, particularly in the Caster world. But if you would care to take one last trip with me, I can show you." He opened his hand to me, offering Liv the other. Ridley stepped forward and closed her hand around mine, and hesitantly Link limped over, completing the circle.

Macon looked over at me, and before I could read his expression, the air was filled with smoke --

Macon tried to hold on, but he was blacking out. He could see the ebony sky above him, streaked with orange flames. He couldn't see Hunting as he fed, but he could feel his brother's teeth in his shoulder. When Hunting had his fill, he let Macon's body drop to the ground.

When Macon opened his eyes again, Lena's grandmother, Emmaline, was kneeling over him. He could feel the heat of her healing power as it coursed through his body. Ethan was there, too. Macon tried to speak, but he didn't know if they could hear him. Find Lena, that's what he wanted to say. Ethan must have heard him, because he took off into the smoke and fire.

The boy was so much like Amarie, so stubborn and fearless. He was so much like his mother, loyal and honest, and bound for the heartbreak that came from loving a Caster. Macon was still thinking about Jane when his mind faded.

When Macon opened his eyes again, the fire was gone. The smoke, the roaring of flames and ammunition -- it was all gone. He felt himself drifting in the darkness. It wasn't like Traveling. This void had weight. It was pulling him through. Yet when he reached out, he could see that his hand was hazy, only partially materialized.

He was dead.

Lena must have made the Choice. She had chosen to go Light. Even in the darkness, knowing the fate of an Incubus in the Otherworld, a sense of calm washed over him. It was finished.

"Not yet. Not for you."

Macon turned, recognizing her voice immediately. Lila Jane. She was luminous in the abyss, shimmering and beautiful. "Janie. There's so much I have to tell you."

Jane shook her head, her brown hair falling over her shoulder. "There's no time."

"There's nothing but time."

Jane stretched out her hand, her fingers glimmering. "Take my hand."

As soon as Macon touched her, the darkness began to bleed into colors and light. He could see images, familiar shapes and forms swimming around him, but he couldn't anchor them. Then he realized where they were. The archive, Jane's special place.

"Jane, what's happening?" He saw her reach out, but everything was blurry and unclear. Then he heard the words, the words he had taught her.

"In these walls with no time or space, I Bind your body and from this Earth erase."

There was something in her hand. The Arclight. "Jane, don't do it! I want to be here with you."

She was floating before him, already beginning to fade. "I promised if the time came, I would use it. I'm keeping my promise. You can't die. They need you." She was gone now, a voice, nothing else. "My son needs you."

Macon tried to tell her everything he had failed to say in life, but it was too late. He could feel the pull of the Arclight already, impossible to break. As he spun into the abyss, he heard her seal his fate.

"Comprehende, Liga, Cruci Fige.

Capture, Cage, and Crucify."

Macon dropped my hand, and the vision released us. I held it in my mind, unable to let her go. My mom had saved him, using the weapon Macon had given her to use against him. She had given up the chance for them to finally be together, because of me. Had she known he was our only chance?

When I opened my eyes, Liv was crying, and Ridley was trying to pretend she wasn't. "Oh, please. Enough with the drama." A tear leaked onto her cheek.

Liv wiped her eyes, sniffling. "I had no idea a Sheer was capable of anything like that."

"You would be surprised what we are capable of when the situation warrants it." Macon clapped his hand on my shoulder. "Isn't that right, Mr. Wate?"

I knew he was trying to thank me. But as I looked around our broken circle, I didn't feel like I deserved thanks. Ridley had lost her powers, Link was wincing in pain, and Liv had destroyed her future. "I didn't do anything."

Macon's hand tightened on my shoulder, forcing me to face him. "You made yourself see what most would have overlooked. You brought me here; you brought me back. You accepted your fate as a Wayward and found the way here. None of that could have been easy." He looked around the cave at Ridley, Link, and Liv. His eyes lingered a moment on Liv, and then his eyes locked on mine. "For anyone."

Including Lena.

I almost couldn't stand to tell him, but I wasn't sure if he knew. "Lena thinks she killed you."

Macon didn't speak for a second, but when he did, his voice was even and controlled. "Why would she think that?"

"Sarafine stabbed me that night, but you died. Amma told me. But Lena can't forgive herself, and it's ... changed her." I wasn't making sense, but there was so much Macon needed to know. "I think she may have made a choice in her heart without realizing it."

"She didn't." Macon dismissed me.

"It was The Book of Moons, Mr. Ravenwood." Liv couldn't help herself. "Lena was desperate to save Ethan, and she used the Book. It made a trade, your life for his. Lena had no way of knowing what would happen. The Book can't be properly controlled, which is why it's not meant to be kept in Caster hands." Liv sounded even more like a Caster librarian than usual.

Macon tilted his head slightly. "I see. Olivia?"

"Yes, sir?"

"With all due respect, we've no time for a Keeper. This day will require certain actions best left unkept. At the very least, untold. Do you understand?"

Liv nodded. Her expression said she understood more than he knew.

"She's not a Keeper, not anymore." Liv had saved his life and destroyed her own in the process. She deserved Macon's respect, at the very least.

"Not likely, after this," she sighed.

I listened to the waves crashing, wishing they could carry my thoughts out to sea with them. "Everything's changed."

Macon's eyes flickered again to Liv, then returned to me. "Nothing's changed. Nothing important. It could, but it hasn't yet."

Link cleared his throat. "But what can we do? I mean, look at us." Link paused. "They've got a whole army a Incubuses and who knows what else down there."

Macon took stock of us. "What do we have? A powerless Siren, a renegade Keeper, a lost Wayward, and ... you, Mr. Lincoln. A motley but resourceful crew, indeed." Lucille meowed. "And yes, you, Ms. Ball."

I realized what a train wreck we were, hammered, dirty, and exhausted.

"Yet, somehow you made it this far. And you released me from the Arclight, which was no small feat."

"Are you sayin' you think we can take them?" Link had the same look on his face as the one he had when Earl Petty started a fight with the whole Summerville High football team.

"I'm saying we don't have time to stand here and chat, as much as I enjoy your fine company. I have more than a few things to take care of, my niece being first and foremost." Macon turned to me. "Wayward, show us the way."

Macon took a step toward the mouth of the cave, and his legs collapsed under him. A cloud of dust rose where he fell. I looked at him, sitting in the dirt in his charred dinner jacket. He hadn't recovered from whatever happened in the Arclight. I hadn't exactly called in the Marines. We needed a plan B.