Page 49 of Changeling (The Incubus Saga #2)

“What’s the word, Jesse James?” Nathan said brightly into his cell phone as he answered his brother’s call.

He was in a particularly good mood ever since Sasha allowed him to split off and do some physical digging while the incubus stuck to questioning students and faculty.

He was currently on the school roof checking the area for any signs of the paranormal.

So far he hadn’t found anything too incriminating, other than a few very anatomically correct pieces of graffiti.

“You sound too happy,” Jim said. “Did you kill a teenager? I know they can be annoying, but killing the people we’re trying to save could be seen as counterproductive.”

“Hardy-har,” Nathan griped. “Just enjoying the unseasonably warm weather is all.” It was forty degrees. Not exactly warm but better than what the weather would usually be like in the middle of January. “So didja get anything new? How’d you do with having a look at the police reports?”

“Better than I expected,” Jim said.

Nathan walked to the edge on the north side of the building.

The view was pretty impressive as long as Nathan didn’t get close enough to look down .

“Back at the hotel, then? Anything in the reports we didn’t already know?

” He walked along about a foot from the edge as he went, searching for any ominous signs, symbols, or residue.

“Well, it looks like there’s even more inconsistency with the different deaths,” Jim said. “None of them happened at the same time of day. What’s really interesting though is that there was always more than one person that found the bodies.”

“That’s kinda odd.” Nathan ran a hand through his hair. “Makes me think it is one of the students and they always make sure to have someone with them when the bodies are found so no one suspects they did it.”

“The reports don’t say the names of the people who found the bodies each time though. If we knew that then we could probably narrow things down. Assuming the killer even does the whole return to the scene of the crime cliché.”

Nathan shrugged—even if Jim couldn’t see him. “Better to go on then nothing. I’m gonna check in with Sasha again in twenty minutes or so. Maybe he knows who found the bodies. We split to cover more ground. Wait ‘til you meet this Leven kid, Jim.”

“Oh? Just like Wade?”

“More like the polar opposite.” Nathan circled back to the door that led up to the roof, having found nothing of interest. He sat on an old crate that had been left up there, just sturdy enough to hold his weight.

“All right, enough chitchat. Get back to work on those files and research. Let us know if you find anything big. We’ll see you in the parking lot about a quarter to four, okay?

Don’t go wasting time surfing for porn now.

” Nathan grinned to himself when Jim responded with an irritated sigh.

Nathan pocketed his cell phone after Jim said very tersely, “ Goodbye , Nathan,” and continued to sit on his crate.

It was nice sitting up on the roof in the not too cold weather by himself for a few minutes.

He was pleased Walter stayed away and let him enjoy the rare peace and quiet.

Nathan really did like a good view when he wasn’t thinking about the heights. And Pittsburgh had one fine skyline.

Gingerly, he touched a fingertip to his right eyebrow.

The cut was healing quickly, and Jim had already removed the stitches since they weren’t exactly pretty, but Nathan still had a red and angry wound through his eyebrow.

He doubted the thin line of hair that had been sliced through would grow back once the cut scarred over.

He huffed in hollow amusement to think that something so small and simple would leave a reminder when he’d suffered through so much worse.

“Hey there. Anyone ever tell you, you look sexy all alone up on a roof like this?”

“Jesus!” Nathan nearly leapt from the crate. Especially considering that the culprit for causing his alarm was a seventeen-year-old flirt with turquoise hair.

Nathan grimaced as he looked up and saw Leven standing inside the doorway that led back off the roof. “Are you stalking me now?” he accused, only half joking. “Get the jump on me like that again and you might just take a nosedive off the side of the building.”

The kid laughed as he entered fully onto the roof carrying what looked like lunch. He wasn’t barefoot anymore and had obviously changed after his morning dance practice. He had on skinny jeans that showed off his slim hips, a graphic T, and an unzipped bomber jacket.

“You eating up here?” Nathan asked as Leven pulled another crate up next to him. “It’s frickin’ forty degrees out.”

“Says the guy who thought this would be a nice place to relax,” Leven smirked. He pulled his feet up cross-legged on the crate and opened his bag lunch—a sandwich.

Nathan studied the kid a moment. “So you gonna tell me why you’re eating up here alone instead of with friends, or do I gotta coerce it outta you?”

A wider smirk quirked at Leven’s lips. “Coerce, huh? Does that involve—”

“ Seriously now,” Nathan jumped in. “Can’t be for the sun,” he added with a nod at the clouded over sky.

Leven’s smirk faded, his light-hearted persona slipping the same way Nathan had seen before. “Those friends you mentioned?” he said, picking at his sandwich. “Yeah, I don’t…really have any.”

“New to the school? No, wait. Wade’s been here for years.”

Leven picked a little more at his sandwich and then set it down without taking a bite. “It’s not so bad up here. At least nobody bugs me.”

“But you’re the lead in the school play, right? Doesn’t that sorta go with being popular?”

“Uh,” Leven blinked at Nathan like he was absolutely out of his mind. “Did you even go to high school?”

Well…huh. Nathan hadn’t actually finished any kind of formal education, being on the run since he was middle school age, and he’d never really given much thought to high school politics.

“I mean, I guess there’s a handful of pretty cool people in the show, but they’re all uber -young. Mostly freshmen. We have lunch at different times. No classes together. Sorta puts a damper on things.”

It hit Nathan then what was probably the reason for such alienation toward Leven from his classmates.

“Don’t tell me it’s coz of something stupid like the gay thing?

” he asked. The thought made him want to wrap his hands around something very tightly, and he resisted the urge to touch his eyebrow again.

Leven huffed out a laugh. “Easy for you to say. You’ve already been through this shit.”

“Uh…yeah,” Nathan rubbed at the back of his neck, “not so much, kid. This is all sorta…new for me.”

Leven eyed him skeptically.

“Okay, so I obviously broadcast it pretty loudly that the redhead is mine,” Nathan admitted, “and he’s not much better.

Actually, he’s worse. But it’s not all normal, cut and dry.

” Nathan tried to think of how best to explain things, but there wasn’t any real way to do it other than to just come right out and tell the truth.

“I’m not gay, all right? At least…I’m not into other guys.

Just him . And me and him being an us, well, that’s only been for about a month. ”

Leven was silent, and Nathan feared for a moment the kid might be offended by his admission. When Nathan looked up, the teenager was staring at him.

“ Shit ,” Leven said finally. “So you’re straight, crazy hot—like melt me into a puddle hot —and Red gets you to fall in love with him so deeply, you switch teams for him?

That’s like straight out of a gay romance novel, yaoi Japanese comic book kinda crap.

Kinky.” Leven winked at Nathan. The gesture was very Sasha-like actually, which disturbed him to no end.

“Kid, you are beyond creeping me out,” Nathan said, “but I think there may have been a compliment in there somewhere so I’ll just say thanks and leave it.”

Again, Leven laughed. Nathan decided it suited the kid. He had a feeling it didn’t happen nearly as much as Leven would have people believe.

“So, kids your age treat you like crap for being different. Huh,” Nathan nodded.

“Good to know not much has changed since I went to school. But don’t let ‘em get to you,” he said more seriously, looking over at Leven on his parallel crate.

“It’s how they win. And those kinds of people… they don’t deserve to win.”

Leven’s smile stretched as wide as Nathan had yet seen it.

“No worries there,” he assured him, finally picking his sandwich up and taking a large bite.

He spoke around his chewing. “They can all go blow themselves. No one’s changing my stripes for me.

The one thing that’s worse than having people hate you for what you are and what you can’t change is letting them get you to hate yourself for it, too.

” Leven nodded to himself as he swallowed.

“That’s what Wade says. She can be pretty cool when she wants to be. ”

Nathan understood that as little brother speak for ‘I love my sister’ . “You talk to the redhead yet?” he asked, figuring that switching gears was probably a good idea. “And it’s Sasha, if ya wanna know. I’m Nathan.”

“Introductions at last,” Leven beamed. He held out the hand that wasn’t currently holding a sandwich and Nathan took it with a sideways grin. They shook. “Nice to meet you, Mr. Only-Gay-For-His-Boyfriend.”

Nathan pulled his hand back from the kid’s lingering hold. “Okay, you need to cut that out right now. Frankly, the underage flirting gives me the willies, and you know I’m taken. Is that whole ‘all gay men want a straight guy’ thing true or what?”

The otherwise pleasant expression on Leven’s face twisted into a grimace.

“Uh, no. I can vouch that I have no intentions on any of the breeders on the football team. But really?” Leven said, looking at Nathan in a way that said he really wanted him to pay attention, “gay or straight, I’d take any guy as long as he honestly wants me .

The details don’t matter as much. Ya know?

” Leven took another large bite of his sandwich.

“Yeah,” Nathan said with a more genuine smile again, “I think I know just what you mean.”

Leven grinned as he gave Nathan the once over yet again. “You wouldn’t happen to have a younger brother, would you?”

Nathan was sorely tempted to find some way to set Jim up over that but he didn’t want to mislead the kid.

“Twin brother. Not identical. He’s here with us too.

However ,” he added before Leven’s moon eyes could get any bigger, “he’s still too old for you.

He’s possibly even straighter than me. And really…

he’s not nearly as pretty. I’d just be setting you up for disappointment. ”

Leven laughed. “I’m just impatient, I guess. Kinda don’t wanna have to wait for my prince to come, or whatever. I just want him here now . Typical stupid teenager stuff, right?”

“Pretty much, yeah,” Nathan said. Their crates were close enough that he managed to buck Leven in the shoulder. “And that ain’t so bad. There’ll be stupid adult stuff for you to agonize over before ya know it, kid. Ain’t life grand?”

Nathan’s cell phone vibrated in his pocket with a new text message. He checked his watch. He was late to meet up with Sasha.

“You gonna keep chowing down up here?” Nathan asked as he looked up from his phone, and then realized how unnecessary that question was since Leven had somehow managed to finish off the sandwich when he wasn’t looking and was now downing the last bite.

“Well then, unless you gotta run off to class, wanna come with me to meet up with Sasha downstairs? We really do want to talk to you about all these deaths.”

“I have a free period next,” Leven said, crumpling up his now empty brown paper bag and getting up off the crate, “but even if I had the ACTs coming up, I’d still choose an afternoon with two hot guys over class.”

Nathan rolled his eyes but couldn’t resist smiling. “Fine, but you flirt with my incubus and there’ll be hell to pay.” He went for the roof door ahead of Leven and opened it.

“You call him your incubus?” Leven asked, swooning as he placed a dramatic hand over his heart. “Oh, that’s love all right.”

Nathan held the door open for Leven, mainly because he needed a minute to mentally yell at himself for letting ‘incubus’ slip out of his mouth so easily. He shook his head.

Truer statement than you know, kid.