Beautiful Darkness(45)

“And what was all that crap about the best a both worlds? What worlds? Creep and creepier?”

“I don't know. I was sure he was an Incubus.”

Link rotated his shoulder, assessing the damage. “Whatever he is, that dude's got some serious superpowers. I wonder what else he can do.”

We turned the corner, near the exit of the Tunnel of Love. I stopped walking. The best of both worlds. What if John could do a lot more than rip like an Incubus and beat the two of us to a pulp? He had green eyes. What if he was some kind of Caster, with his own version of Ridley's Power of Persuasion? I didn't think Ridley could influence Lena by herself, but what if John was helping her?

It would explain why Lena was acting so crazy — why she'd looked like she wanted to come with me, until John whispered in her ear. How long had he been whispering to her?

Link hit my arm with the back of his hand. “Hey. You know what's weird?”

“What?”

“They haven't come out.”

“What do you mean?”

He pointed to the exit of the Tunnel of Love. “They didn't get off the ride.” Link was right. There was no way they could have come out before we turned the corner. We watched as the gondolas kept coming out empty.

“Then where are they?”

Link shook his head, all tapped out of insight for now. “I don't know. Maybe the three of them are doin’ somethin’ kinky in there.” We both winced. “Let's check it out. There's no one around.” Link was already halfway to the exit.

He was right. The cars kept coming out empty. Link hopped over the gate around the ride and ducked into the tunnel. Inside, there was a little space on either side of the track, but it was tricky to walk by the moving cars without getting hit.

One of the cars caught Link in the shin. “There's no one in here. Where could they have gone?”

“They couldn't have disappeared.” I remembered the way John Breed ripped out of Macon's funeral. Maybe he could, but Ridley and Lena couldn't Travel.

Link ran his hands along the walls. “You think there's some kinda secret Caster door in here, or somethin’?”

The only Caster doors I knew about led to the Tunnels, the underground labyrinth of passageways that slept quietly under Gatlin and the rest of the Mortal world. It was a world within a world, so different from ours that it altered both time and distance. But, as far as I knew, all the entrances to the Tunnels were inside buildings — Ravenwood, the Lunae Libri, the crypt at Greenbrier. A few sheets of painted plywood didn't qualify as a building, and there was nothing under the Tunnel of Love except dirt. “A door leading where? This thing is sitting in the middle of the fair. They just set it up a couple of days ago.”

Link inched his way back out of the tunnel. “Where else could they have gone?”

If John and Ridley were using their powers to control Lena, I had to find out. It wouldn't explain away the last few months or her golden eyes, but maybe it would explain what she was doing with John. “I've gotta get down there.”

Link had already pulled the keys out of his back pocket. “How'd I know you were gonna say that?”

He followed me to the Beater, the gravel crunching under his sneakers as he jogged to keep up. He yanked the rusty door open and slid behind the wheel. “Where are we goin’? Or am I better off —” He was still talking when I heard it, the tiny words tugging at the bottom of my heart.

Good-bye, Ethan.

They were gone, the voice and the girl. Like a soap bubble, or cotton candy, or the last silvery sliver of a dream.





6.15





Unmistakable


The Beater skidded to a stop in front of the Historical Society, the front tires halfway up the curb, the engine dying out on the empty street.

“Can you take it down a notch? Someone's gonna hear us.” Not that Link ever drove any differently. Still, we were parked only a few feet from the building that served as the DAR headquarters. I noticed the roof had finally been rebuilt — it had blown off in Hurricane Lena, a few days before her birthday. Though Jackson High had been hit by the same storm, I guess those repairs could wait. We had our priorities around here.

Almost everyone in South Carolina was related to a Confederate, so joining the Daughters of the Confederacy was easy. But to join the DAR, you needed a bloodline going back to someone who fought in the war for American independence. The problem was the proof. Unless you were an actual signer of the Declaration of Independence, you had to establish a paper trail a mile long. Even then you had to be invited, which required sucking up to Link's mom and signing whatever petition she happened to be passing around. Maybe it was a bigger deal down here than up North, like we needed to prove we had all fought for the same side in a war once. The Mortal part of our town was just as confusing as the Caster one.

Tonight the building looked empty.

“It's not like there's anyone around to hear us. Until the Demolition Derby ends, everyone we know is at the fairgrounds.” Link was right. Gatlin may as well have been a ghost town. Most folks were still at the fair, or at home on the phone reporting the details of a certain Southern Crusty bake-off that would go down in history for decades to come. I was pretty sure Mrs. Lincoln wouldn't have let any of the DAR members miss watching her try to beat Amma out of first place in Pies. Although, right about now, I bet Link's mom was wishing she had stuck to pickled okra this year.