John staggered back, stunned. “That’s a lie. You found me when I was a kid.”

Abraham smiled. “That depends on your interpretation of the word found.”

“What are you saying?” John’s face was ashen.

“We took you. I did engineer you, after all.” Abraham dug around in his jacket pocket and removed a cigar. “Your parents had a few happy years together. It’s more than most of us get.”

“What happened to my parents?” John gritted his teeth. I could almost see the rage.

Abraham turned to Hunting, who lit the cigar with a silver lighter. “Answer the boy, Hunting.”

Hunting flipped the top of the lighter closed. He shrugged. “It was a long time ago, kid. They were juicy. And chewy. But I can’t remember the details.”

John lurched forward and ripped through the darkness.

One second he was there. The next, he was gone, sliding away in a ripple of air. He reappeared just inches in front of Abraham and wrapped his hand around the old Incubus’ throat. “I’m going to kill you, you sick son of a bitch.”

The tendons in John’s arm tightened, but his grip didn’t.

The muscles in his hand were tensing, his fingers obviously trying to close, but they wouldn’t. John grabbed his wrist with his other hand, trying to brace it.

Abraham laughed. “You can’t hurt me. I’m the architect of the design. Think I would build a weapon like you without a kill switch?”

Ridley stepped back, watching as John’s hand loosened against his will, his fingers opening as he tried to force them closed again with his other hand. It was impossible.

I couldn’t bear to watch. Abraham seemed more in control of John now than he had on the night of the Seventeenth Moon. Worse, John’s awareness didn’t seem to change the fact that he couldn’t control his body. Abraham was pulling the strings.

“You’re a monster,” John hissed, still holding his wrist inches from Abraham’s throat.

“Flattery won’t get you anywhere. You’ve caused me lots of problems, boy. You owe me.” Abraham smiled. “And I plan to take it out of your flesh.”

He twitched his hands again, and John rose off the ground further, clutching his own neck with his hands, strangling himself.

Abraham was trying to do more than make a point. “You have outlived your usefulness. All that work for nothing.”

John’s eyes rolled back in his head, and his body went limp.

“Don’t you need him?” Ridley shouted. “You said he was the ultimate weapon.”

“Unfortunately, he’s defective,” Abraham answered.

I noticed something move in my peripheral vision a moment before I heard his voice.

“One could say the same thing about you, Grandfather.” Uncle Macon stepped out from behind one of the crypts, his green eyes glowing in the darkness. “Put the boy down.”

Abraham laughed, though his expression was anything but amused. “Defective? That’s a compliment, coming from the little Incubus who wanted to be a Caster.”

Abraham’s grip on John loosened just enough for John to get some air. The Blood Incubus was focusing his anger on Uncle Macon now.

“I never wanted to be a Caster, but I’m glad to accept any fate that unburdens me from the Darkness you brought upon this family.” Uncle Macon pointed a hand at John, and a wave of energy flashed across the graveyard, the blast hitting John squarely.

John yanked his hands away from his neck as his body dropped to the ground.

Hunting started toward his brother, but Abraham stopped him, clapping dramatically. “Nicely done. That’s quite a party trick, son. Maybe next time you can light my cigar.” Abraham’s features settled in his familiar sneer. “Enough games. Let’s finish this.”

Hunting didn’t hesitate.

He ripped through the darkness as Uncle Macon focused his green eyes on the black sky. Hunting materialized in front of his brother just as the sky exploded into a blanket of pure light.

Sunlight.

Uncle Macon had done it once before, in the parking lot of Jackson High, but this time the light was even more intense—and focused. That light coming from him had been Caster green. This time it was something stronger and more natural, as if the light came from the sky itself.

Hunting’s body jerked. He reached out and grabbed his brother’s shirt, taking them both to the ground.

But the killing light only intensified.

Abraham’s skin went pale, the color of white ash. The light seemed to weaken him, but not nearly as quickly as it was draining Hunting.

Even as Hunting desperately tried to stay alive, Abraham only seemed interested in trying to kill us. The old Blood Incubus was too strong, and he reached out for Uncle Macon. I knew better than to underestimate him. Even wounded, he wouldn’t give up until he destroyed us all.

An overwhelming sense of panic surged inside me. I concentrated every thought, every cell on Abraham. The earth around him bucked, tearing itself from the ground like a rug being pulled out from under him. Abraham staggered and then turned his attention to me.

He closed his hand around the air in front of him, and an invisible force tightened around my throat. I felt my feet rise off the ground, my Chucks kicking below me.

“Lena!” John shouted. He closed his eyes, concentrating on Abraham, but whatever he was planning, he wasn’t fast enough.

I couldn’t breathe.

“I don’t think so.” Abraham twisted his free hand, bringing John to his knees in seconds.