Beautiful Darkness(103)

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.”