Beautiful Creatures (54 page)

“So you are a vampire.”

“I most certainly am not.” He looked annoyed. “That’s such a common phrase, such a cliché, and so unflattering. There are
no such things as vampires. I suppose you believe in werewolves and aliens, too. I blame television.” He inhaled deeply from
his cigar. “I hate to disappoint you. I’m an Incubus. I’m sure it was just a matter of time before Amarie told you herself,
since she seems so intent on revealing all my secrets.”

An Incubus? I didn’t even know if I should be scared. I must have looked confused, because Macon felt compelled to elaborate.
“By nature, gentlemen like myself do have certain
powers
, but those powers are only relative to our strength, which we must
replenish
regularly.” There was something disturbing about the way he said replenish.

“What do you mean by replenish?”

“We feed, for lack of a better word, on Mortals to replenish our strength.”

The room started to sway. Or maybe Macon was swaying.

“Ethan, sit down. You look absolutely pallid.” Macon strode over and guided me to the edge of the bed. “As I said, I use the
word ‘feed’ for lack of a better term. Only a Blood Incubus feeds on Mortal blood, and I am not a Blood Incubus. Although
we are both Lilum—those who dwell in the Absolute Darkness—I am something entirely more
evolved
. I take something you Mortals have in abundance, something you don’t even need.”

“What?”

“Dreams. Fragmented bits and pieces. Ideas, desires, fears, memories—nothing you miss.” The words came rolling out of his
mouth as if he was speaking a charm. I found myself struggling to process them, trying to understand what he was saying. My
mind felt like it was wrapped in thick wool.

But then, I understood. I could feel the pieces clicking together like a puzzle in my mind. “The dreams—you’ve been taking
part of them? Sucking them out of my head? That’s the reason I can’t remember the whole dream?”

He smiled and stubbed his cigar out on an empty Coke can on my desk. “Guilty as charged. Except for the ‘sucking.’ Not the
most polite phraseology.”

“If you’re the one sucking—stealing my dreams, then you know the rest. You know what happens, in the end. You can tell us,
so we can stop it.”

“I’m afraid not. I selected the bits and pieces I took rather intentionally.”

“Why don’t you want us to know what happens? If we know the rest of the dream, maybe we can stop it from happening.”

“It seems you know too much already, not that I understand it completely myself.”

“Stop talking in riddles for once. You keep saying I can protect Lena, that I have power. Why don’t you tell me what the hell
is really going on, Mr. Ravenwood, because I’m tired, and I’m sick of being jerked around.”

“I can’t tell you what I don’t know, son. You’re a bit of a mystery.”

“I’m not your son.”

“Melchizedek Ravenwood!” Amma’s voice rang out like a bell.

Macon started losing his composure.

“How dare you come into this house without my permission!” She was standing in her bathrobe holding a long rope of beads.
If I didn’t know better I’d have thought it was a necklace. Amma shook the beaded charm angrily in her fist. “We have an agreement.
This house is off-limits. You find somewhere else to do your dirty business.”

“It’s not that simple, Amarie. The boy is seeing things in his dreams, things that are dangerous for
both
of them.”

Amma’s eyes were wild. “Are you feedin’ offa my boy? Is that what you’re sayin’? Is that supposed to make me feel better?”

“Calm down. Don’t be so literal. I am merely doing what is necessary to protect them both.”

“I know what you do and what you are, Melchizedek, and you will deal with the Devil in due time. Don’t you bring that evil
into my house.”

“I made a choice long ago, Amarie. I’ve fought what I was destined to be. I fight it every night of my life. But I am not
Dark, not as long as I have the child to concern me.”

“Doesn’t change what you are. That’s not a choice you get to make.”

Macon’s eyes narrowed. It was clear that the bargain between the two of them was a delicate one, and he had jeopardized it
by coming here. How many times? I didn’t even know.

“Why don’t you just tell me what happens at the end of the dream? I have a right to know. It’s my dream.”

“It’s a powerful dream, a disturbing dream, and Lena doesn’t need to see it. She’s not ready to see it, and you two are so
inexplicably connected. She sees what you see. So you can understand why I had to take it.”

The rage welled up inside me. I was so angry, angrier than when Mrs. Lincoln stood up and lied about Lena at the Disciplinary
Committee meeting, angrier then when I found the pages and pages of scribble in my father’s study.

“No. I don’t understand. If you know something that can help her, why won’t you tell us? Or just stop using your Jedi mind
tricks on me and my dreams and let me see it for myself?”

“I am only trying to protect her. I love Lena, and I would never—”

“—I know, I’ve heard it. You’d never do anything to hurt her. What you forgot to say is that you won’t do anything to help
her, either.”

His jaw tightened. Now he was the one who was angry; I knew how to recognize it now. But he didn’t break character, not even
for a minute. “I am trying to protect her, Ethan, and you as well. I know you care for Lena, and you do offer her some sort
of protection, but there are things you don’t see right now, things that are beyond any of our control. One day you will understand.
You and Lena are just too different.”

A Species Apart.
Just like the other Ethan wrote to Genevieve. I understood all right. Nothing had changed in over a hundred years.

His eyes softened. I thought maybe he pitied me, but it was something else. “Ultimately, it will be your burden to bear. It’s
always the Mortal who bears it. Trust me, I know.”

“I don’t trust you and you’re wrong. We aren’t too different.”

“Mortals. I envy you. You think you can change things. Stop the universe. Undo what was done long before you came along. You
are such beautiful creatures.” He was talking to me, but it didn’t feel like he was talking about me anymore. “I apologize
for the intrusion. I’ll leave you to your sleep.”

“Just stay out of my room, Mr. Ravenwood. And out of my head.”

He turned toward the door, which surprised me. I expected him to leave the way he had arrived.

“One more thing. Does Lena know what you are?”

He smiled. “Of course. We have no secrets between us.”

I didn’t smile back. There were more than a few secrets between them, even if this wasn’t one of them, and both Macon and
I knew it.

He turned away from me with a swirl of his overcoat, and was gone.

Just like that.

2.05

T
he next morning, I woke up with a pounding headache. I did not, as so often happens in stories, think that the whole thing
had never happened. I did not believe that Macon Ravenwood appearing and disappearing in my bedroom the night before had been
a dream. Every morning for months after my mom’s accident, I had woken up believing it had all been a bad dream. I would never
make that mistake again.

This time around, I knew if it seemed like everything had changed, it was because it had. If it seemed like things were getting
weirder and weirder, it was because they were. If it seemed like Lena and I were running out of time, it was because we were.

Six days and counting. Things didn’t look good for us. That was all there was to say. So of course, we didn’t say it. At school,
we did what we always did. We held hands in the hallway. We kissed by the back lockers until our lips ached and I felt close
to being electrocuted. We stayed in our bubble, enjoyed what we tried to pretend were our ordinary lives, or what little we
had left of them. And we talked, all day long, through every minute of every class, even the ones we didn’t have together.

Lena told me about Barbados, where the water and the sky met in a thin blue line until you couldn’t tell which was which,
while I was supposed to be making a clay rope bowl in ceramics.

Lena told me about her Gramma, who let her drink 7-Up using red licorice as a straw, while we wrote our in-class
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
essays in English, and Savannah Snow smacked her gum.

Lena told me about Macon, who, despite everything, had been there for every birthday, wherever she’d been, since she could
remember.

That night, after staying up for hour after hour with
The Book of Moons
, we watched the sun rise—even though she was at Ravenwood, and I was at home.

Ethan?

I’m here.

I’m scared.

I know. You should try to get some sleep, L.

I don’t want to waste time sleeping.

Me neither.

But we both knew that wasn’t it. Neither one of us felt much like dreaming.

“
THE NYGHT OF THE CLAYMYNG BEING THE NYGHT OF GREATESTE WEAKNESSE, WHENNE THE DARKENESSE WITHINNE ENJOINS THE DARKENESSE WITHOUTE
& THE PERSONNE OF POWERE OPENNES TO THE GREATE DARKNESSE, SO STRIPPED OF PROTECTIONS, BINDINGS & CASTS OF SHIELDE & IMMUNITIE.
DEATH, AT THE HOURE OF CLAYMING, IS MOST FINALE & ETERNALLE…”

Lena shut the Book. “I can’t read any more of this.”

“No kidding. No wonder your uncle is so worried all the time.”

“It’s not enough that I could turn into some kind of evil demon. I could also suffer eternal death. Add that to the list under
impending doom.”

“Got it. Demon. Death. Doom.”

We were in the garden at Greenbrier again. Lena handed me the Book and flopped on her back, staring up at the sky. I hoped
she was playing with the clouds instead of thinking about how little we had figured out during these afternoons with the Book.
But I didn’t ask her to help me as I paged through it, wearing Amma’s old garden gloves that were way too small.

There were thousands of pages in
The Book of Moons
, and some pages contained more than one Cast. There was no rhyme or reason to the way it was organized, at least none that
I could see. The Table of Contents had turned out to be some kind of hoax that only loosely corresponded to some of what could
actually be found inside. I turned the pages, hoping I would stumble across something. But most of the pages just looked like
gibberish. I stared at the words I couldn’t understand.

I DDARGANFOD YR HYN SYDD AR GOLL

DATODWCH Y CWLWM, TROELLWCH A THROWCH EF

BWRIWCH Y RHWYMYN HWN

FEL Y CAF GANFOD

YR HYN RWY’N DYHEU AMDANO

YR HYN RWY’N EI GEISIO.

Something jumped out at me, a word I recognized from a quote tacked on the wall of my parents’ study: “Pete et invenies.”
Seek and you shall find. “Invenies.” Find.

UT INVENIAS QUOD ABEST

EXPEDI NODUM, TORQUE ET CONVOLVE

ELICE HOC VINCULUM