Beautiful Redemption (26 page)

You would have thought Link had solved the Rubik’s Cube. The moment we got into the Beater, he started blasting some song from Pink Floyd’s
Dark Side of the Moon
and shouting excitedly over the music.

When we slowed at the corner, I turned down the volume and cut him off. “Drop me off at Ravenwood, will you? I need to get something before I leave for New Orleans.”

“Hold on. I’m comin’ with you. I promised Ethan I’d keep my eye on you, and I keep my promises.”

“I’m not taking you. I’m taking John.”

“John? That’s the somethin’ you’re gettin’ from home?” His eyes narrowed. “No way.”

“I wasn’t asking your permission. Just so you know.”

“Why? What’s he got that I haven’t?”

“Experience. He knows about Abraham, and he’s the strongest hybrid Incubus in Gatlin County, as far as we know.”

“We’re the same, Lena.” Link’s feathers were getting ruffled.

“You’re more Mortal than John is. That’s what I like about you, Link. But it also makes you weaker.”

“Who are you callin’ weak?” Link flexed his muscles. To be fair, he did nearly split his T-shirt in half. He was like the Incredible Hulk of Stonewall Jackson High.

“I’m sorry. You’re not weak. You’re just three-quarters human. And that’s a little too human for this trip.”

“Whatever. Suit yourself. See if you even get ten feet through the Tunnels without me. You’ll be back here, beggin’ for my help, before I can say…” His face went blank. A classic Link moment. Sometimes the words just seemed to float away from him before they could make it all the way from his brain to his mouth. He finally gave up with a shrug. “Somethin’. Somethin’ real dangerous.”

I patted his shoulder. “Bye, Link.”

Link frowned, hitting the gas pedal, and we ripped down
the street. Not the usual kind of rip for an Incubus, but then again, he was three-quarters rocker. Just the way I liked him—my favorite Linkubus.

I didn’t say that, but I’m pretty sure he knew.

I changed every light green for him, all the way down Route 9. The Beater never had it so good.

CHAPTER 21

Dark Side of the Moon

S
aying we were going to New Orleans to find an old bar—and an even older Incubus—was one thing. Actually finding him was something different. What stood between those two things was talking my Uncle Macon into letting me go.

I tried my uncle at the dinner table, well after Kitchen had served up his favorite dinner, before the plates had disappeared from the endlessly long table.

Kitchen, who was never as accommodating as you’d think a Caster kitchen might be, seemed to know it was important and did everything I asked and more. When I walked downstairs, I found flickering candelabras and the scent of jasmine in the air. With a flutter of my fingers, orchids and tiger lilies
bloomed across the length of the table. I fluttered them again, and my viola appeared in the corner of the room.

I stared at it, and it began to play Paganini. A favorite of my uncle’s.

Perfect.

I looked down at my grubby jeans and Ethan’s faded sweatshirt. I closed my eyes as my hair began to weave itself into a thick French braid. When I opened them again, I was dressed for dinner.

A simple black cocktail dress, the one Uncle Macon bought me last summer in Rome. I touched my neck, and the silver crescent moon necklace he gave me for the winter formal appeared at the base of my throat.

Ready.

“Uncle M? Dinnertime—” I called out into the hall, but he was already there next to me, appearing as swiftly as if he was still an Incubus and could rip through space and time whenever he wanted. Old habits died hard.

“Beautiful, Lena. I find the shoes an especially nice touch.” I looked down and noticed my raggedy black Converse still on my feet. So much for dressing for dinner.

I shrugged and followed him to the table.

Fillet of sea bass with baby fennel. Warm lobster tail. Scallops carpaccio. Grilled peaches soaked in port. I had no appetite, especially not for food you could only find at a five-star restaurant on the Champs-Élysées in Paris—where Uncle
Macon took me at every opportunity—but he ate happily for the better part of an hour.

One thing about former Incubuses: They really appreciate Mortal food.

“What is it?” my uncle finally said, over a forkful of lobster.

“What’s what?” I put down my fork.

“This.” He gestured at the spread of silver platters between us, pulling the shiny dome off one overflowing with steaming, spicy oysters. “And this.” He looked pointedly at my viola, still playing softly. “Paganini, of course. Am I really that predictable?”

I avoided his eyes. “It’s called dinner. You eat it. Which you seem to have no problem doing, by the way.” I grabbed a ridiculous flagon of ice water—where Kitchen found some of our tableware, I’d never know—before he could say anything else.

“This is not dinner. This is, as Mark Antony would say, a tantalizing table of treason. Or perhaps treachery.” He swallowed another bite of lobster. “Or perhaps both, if Mark Antony were a fan of alliteration.”

“No treason.” I smiled. He smiled back, waiting. My uncle was many things—a snob, for one—but he wasn’t a fool. “Just a simple request.”

He set down his wineglass, heavy on the linen tablecloth. I waved a finger, and the glass filled itself.

Insurance, I thought.

“Absolutely not,” said Uncle Macon.

“I haven’t asked you anything.”

“Whatever it is, no. The wine proves it. The last straw. The final pheasant feather on the proverbial fluffy feather bed.”

“So you’re saying Mark Antony isn’t the only fan of alliteration?” I asked.

“Out with it. Now.”

I pulled the matchbook cover out of my pocket and pushed it across the table so he could see it.

“Abraham?”

I nodded.

“And this is in New Orleans?”

I nodded again. He handed me back the matchbook, dabbing at his mouth with his linen napkin. “No.” He returned to the wine.

“No? You were the one who agreed with me. You were the one who said we could find him ourselves.”

“I did. And I will find him while you remain locked safely in your room, like the nice little girl you should be. You’re not going to New Orleans alone.”

“
New Orleans
is the problem?” I was stunned. “Not your ancient-but-deadly Incubus ancestor who tried to kill us on more than one occasion?”

“That and New Orleans. Your grandmother wouldn’t hear of it, even if I said yes.”

“She wouldn’t hear of it? Or she
shouldn’t
hear of it?”

He lifted an eyebrow. “I beg your pardon?”

“What about if she just doesn’t hear of it? That way it’s not an issue.” I put my arms around my uncle. As angry as he made me, and as annoying as it was to have him pay off the Underground bartenders and ground me from various dangerous pursuits, I loved him, and I loved that he loved me as much as he did.

“How about no?”

“How about she’ll be with Aunt Del and everyone in Barbados until next week, so why is this even a problem?”

“How about still no?”

At that point, I gave up. It was hard to stay angry at Uncle Macon. Impossible, even. Knowing how I felt about him was the only way I understood how hard it was for Ethan to live apart from his own mother.

Lila Evers Wate. How many times had her path crossed mine?

we love what we love and who

we love who we love and why

we love why we love and find

a falling shoelace knotted and strung

between the fingers of strangers

I didn’t want to think about it, but I hoped it was true. I hoped wherever Ethan was, he was with her now.

At least give him that.

John and I left first thing in the morning. We needed to leave early, since we were taking the long way—the Tunnels, rather than Traveling, though if I’d let him, John could have easily gotten us there in the blink of an eye.

I didn’t care. I wouldn’t let him. I didn’t want to be reminded of the other times I’d let John carry me—all the way to Sarafine.

So we did it my way. I Cast a
Resonantia
on my viola and set it to practice in the corner while I was gone. It would wear off eventually, but it might give me enough time.

I didn’t tell my uncle I was going. I just went. Uncle Macon still slept most of the day, old habits being what they were. I figured I had at least six good hours before he noticed my absence. By which I mean, before he flipped out and came after me.

One thing I’d realized in the last year was that there were some things no one could give you permission to do. All the same, it didn’t mean you couldn’t or shouldn’t do them—particularly when it came to the big things, like saving the world, or journeying to a supernatural seam between realities, or bringing your boyfriend back from the dead.

Sometimes you had to take matters into your own hands. Parents—or uncles who are the closest thing you have to them—aren’t equipped to deal with that. Because no self-respecting
parent in this world or any other is going to step aside and say, “Sure, risk your life. The world is at stake here.”

How would they possibly say it?

Be back by dinner. Hope you don’t die.

They couldn’t do it. You couldn’t blame them. But it didn’t mean that you shouldn’t go.

I had to go, no matter what Uncle Macon said. That’s what I told myself, anyway, as John and I headed into the Tunnels far beneath Ravenwood. Where, in the darkness, it could have been any time of day or year—any century, anywhere in the world.

The Tunnels weren’t the scary part.

Even spending time alone with John—something I hadn’t done since he’d tricked me and dragged me into going to the Great Barrier for my Seventeenth Moon—wasn’t the problem.

The truth was, Uncle Macon was right.

I was more afraid of the Doorwell that stood before me and of what I would find on the other side. The ancient Doorwell that brought light flooding down onto the stone steps of the Caster Tunnel where I waited now. The one marked
NEW ORLEANS
. The place where Amma had basically made a pact with the Darkest magic in the universe.

I shivered.

John looked at me, his head tilted. “Why are you stopping here?”

“No reason.”

“You scared, Lena?”

“No. Why would I be scared? It’s just a city.” I tried to put all thoughts of black magic bokors and voodoo out of my mind. Just because Ethan had followed Amma into bad times there didn’t mean I was going to encounter the same Darkness. At least not the same bokor.

Did it?

“If you think New Orleans is just a city, then you’ve got another thing coming.” John’s voice was low, and I could barely see his face in the darkness of the Tunnels. He sounded as spooked as I felt.

“What are you talking about?”

“The most powerful Caster city in the country—the greatest convergence of Dark and Light power in modern times. A place where anything can happen, at any hour of the day.”

“At a hundred-year-old bar for two-hundred-year-old Supernaturals?” How frightening could it be? At least that’s what I tried to tell myself.