Beautiful Chaos (Caster Chronicles 3)

Macon was behind him, rain running down his face. “As luck would have it, mine seem to be developing in quite an interesting manner.”

Hunting was as shocked to see Macon as the rest of us, but he did a good job hiding it. He lit another cigarette, despite the rain. “You mean after I killed you? It’ll be a pleasure to do it again.”

The members of Hunting’s pack had picked themselves up and crossed the parking lot the old-fashioned way. Now they were standing behind Hunting.

Macon closed his eyes.

Everything went quiet and still. Too still. The way it feels right before something horrible is going to happen. I wasn’t the only one who sensed it.

Hunting vanished, ripping through the shiny black sky—

As he materialized, inches from Macon, a pulsating green light enveloped us. The light hummed with power.

It was coming from Macon.

Hunting froze in the eerie green glow, his hand outstretched, canines bared.

“What is that?” Link was shielding his eyes.

“It’s light,” Liv said, transfixed.

“How can he create light?” I asked.

Liv shook her head. “I have no idea.”

The light grew brighter, and Hunting dropped to the ground, thrashing on the glowing concrete. An agonizing sound tore through him, like his vocal cords were shredding. The other two Incubuses were writhing on the ground, too, but I couldn’t take my eyes off Hunting.

The color started to leach out of him, beginning at the top of his head and moving down over his face. It was like watching a sheet being pulled off someone, slowly. But this sheet was a black mist, and as it moved down, his neck—and his hair, his skin, his empty black eyes—became almost translucent. It was happening to other members of his Blood Pack, too.

“What’s happening to them?” I don’t know if I was expecting an answer, but it was John who had one.

“They’re losing their power. Their Darkness.” I could tell from the panicked look on John’s face that he’d never seen this firsthand. “That’s what happens to Incubuses when they’re exposed to daylight.” I looked at John. It wasn’t affecting him.

“He’s really creating light,” Liv whispered.

John said something else, but I wasn’t listening anymore. I was staring at the other two Incubuses, who were translucent now. The Darkness had seeped out of them much faster. I watched as their bodies stiffened, like statues, their eyes fixed and lifeless. But that wasn’t the most disturbing part.

The black mist—the Dark power that had drained out of their bodies—was seeping into the ground.

“Where is it going?” Lena asked.

“The Underground.” John took a step back, as if he didn’t want to get too close to what he could’ve been. “Energy can’t be destroyed. It just changes form.”

I froze. The words replayed themselves in my mind.

It just changes form.

I thought about Twyla and the Greats and Aunt Prue. My mom and Macon.

I remembered the green glow of the Arclight.

The same light that was washing over us now. Had something happened to Macon within its walls? Had my mother changed him somehow? Remade the man she had loved and lost?

“What will it become?” Liv sounded frightened. John was actually telling her something she didn’t know.

The color had drained from Hunting’s body, all the way down to his hands. Macon hadn’t moved, his eyes squeezed tightly shut, like he was in the middle of a terrible nightmare.

John didn’t answer for a second. When finally he did, I wished he hadn’t. “Vexes.”