“At least she’s supposed to be. And she’s not my girlfriend.” Link clenched his jaw.
“In my experience, the only side Ridley’s ever on is her own.” John stepped over a broken statue of a praying angel, her hands cracked at the wrists. All the broken angels around here were starting to feel like a bad omen.
Link looked annoyed, but he didn’t say anything. He didn’t seem to like it when anyone but him criticized Ridley. I wondered if things could ever really be over between them.
He and John navigated around the broken caskets and tree limbs, reaching an enormous sinkhole just beyond the old Honeycutt crypt. I did my best to keep up, but they were Incubuses, so there was nothing I could do, short of Casting an Incubus-cloning spell.
But soon it didn’t matter, because we had nowhere left to go.
Abraham was waiting for us.
Either we had walked right into his trap or he had walked right into ours. It was almost time to find out.
Abraham Ravenwood was standing on the far side of the sinkhole. Wearing a long black coat and stovepipe hat and leaning against a splintered tree, he looked bored, as if this was an annoying errand.
The Book of Moons was tucked under his arm.
I breathed a sigh of relief. “He brought it,” I said quietly.
“We don’t have it yet,” Link said under his breath.
Wearing a black turtleneck and a leather jacket, Hunting stood behind his great-great-great-grandfather. He was blowing smoke rings at Ridley. She coughed, waving the smoke away from her red dress, and gave her uncle a dirty look.
There was something disturbing about seeing her dressed in red, standing a few feet away from two Blood Incubuses. I hoped John was wrong and Ridley really was on our side—for Link’s sake as much as my own.
We both loved her. And you couldn’t control who you loved, even if you wanted to. That had been Genevieve’s problem with Ethan Carter Wate. It had been Uncle Macon’s problem with Lila, Link’s with Ridley. Probably even Ridley’s with Link.
Love was how all these knots started to unravel in the first place.
“You brought it,” I called across to Abraham.
“And you’ve brought him.” Abraham’s eyes narrowed at the sight of John. “There’s my boy. I’ve been so worried.”
John tensed. “I’m not your boy. And you’ve never cared about me, so you can stop pretending.”
“That’s not true.” Abraham acted hurt. “I’ve put a great deal of energy into you.”
“Too much, if you ask me,” Hunting said.
“No one did,” Abraham snapped.
Hunting clenched his jaw and flicked his cigarette into the grass. He didn’t look pleased. Which meant he would probably take that anger out on someone who didn’t deserve it and didn’t expect it. We were all plausible candidates.
John looked disgusted. “You mean treating me like a slave and using me to do your dirty work? Thanks, but I’m not interested in the kind of energy you put into things.”
Abraham stepped forward, his black string tie blowing in the breeze. “I don’t care what interests you. You serve a purpose, and when you stop serving it, you won’t be useful to me anymore. I think we both know how I feel about things that aren’t of any use to me.” He smirked. “I watched Sarafine burn to death, and the only thing that bothered me was the ash on my jacket.”
He was telling the truth. I had watched my mother burn, too. Not that I thought of Sarafine that way. But hearing Abraham talk about her like that made me feel something, even if I didn’t know what.
Sympathy? Compassion?
&n
bsp; Do I feel sorry for the woman who tried to kill me? Is that possible?
John had told me that Abraham hated Casters as much as Mortals. I hadn’t believed him until that moment. Abraham Ravenwood was cold, calculating, and evil. He really was the Devil, or the closest thing I’d ever met.
I watched as John raised his head high and called to Abraham. “Just give my friends the Book, and I’ll leave with you. That was the deal.”