Page 77 of Changeling (The Incubus Saga #2)

“Nathan?”

Nathan and Sasha both turned to see Iain coming from around the building, having apparently exited a side door instead of the main ones. He had on a deep brown jacket over his T-shirt and zip-up, and carried a tote bag over his shoulder that was covered in buttons.

Approaching with that same easy smile, Iain walked over to Sasha and extended a hand. “Iain Wilde,” he introduced himself. “Saw you before with the rest of the group. Nathan’s brother?” The incorrect assumption sounded more hopeful than anything.

“Uhh…no,” Sasha said leadingly, with a look at Nathan that said he should be the one to explain. “I’m Sasha Kelly. Nice to meet you.”

“Eheh…well, umm, nice to meet you too,” Iain managed, his smile wavering a little as he looked between Nathan and Sasha.

“So…there’s this place just down the street,” he pointed a ways down the main road, “where we can grab some coffee or whatever and you can ask me anything you want. I can definitely give you more straightforward answers than any of those books.”

“Sounds perfect. Why don’t we go grab ourselves a booth or something?

I’ll buy since you’re being such a good sport about all this.

” Nathan patted Iain’s shoulder and started leading them away from the library down the street.

There was tension Nathan could feel in Iain’s body that slowly began to ease away.

“Nice to have someone actually interested in some of the crazy random shit running through my head,” Iain said. “Most people think it’s a waste of time to even look into the supernatural. But you can’t deny what’s been happening now.” He walked into the café and the others followed him.

It was only late-afternoon in the middle of the week so the place was fairly cleared out and it wasn’t difficult for them to grab a booth, order a couple coffees, and dive right in.

With a somewhat hesitant smile now, Iain very obviously sat himself down in the middle of one side of the booth so that Nathan and Sasha could sit together. Nathan was pretty sure his mistake earlier had been made understood. He couldn’t help feeling a little bad about that.

“So I started really noticing the missing persons thing a few years ago,” Iain said.

“Sure, a crap-ton a people go missing all sorts of places every year. But these were always kinda the same. I started looking into it, just side stuff, and it seemed like every missing person I was able to find out stuff about started acting weird right before they disappeared. Just like old Autry said before they hanged him over blowing up the mine. You knew about that, right?”

Sasha and Nathan both nodded. “But with these new disappearances there haven’t been those same reports as far as we can tell,” Sasha supplied. “More suddenly missing people than other years, but no one’s said anything about them acting strange beforehand.”

“See that’s where I’m thinking things are getting more interesting these days,” Iain said in a hushed voice, leaning over the table between them.

“If you really look at the people who went missing, starting with the miners, the amount of time beforehand gets shorter every year after that.

Autry noticed people acting strange weeks before he blew the place.

Every year there seems to be less time though.

“Okay, so I haven’t traced back all the way, but the last person who went missing before this new mess started was a neighbor of mine about six months ago.

I saw him practically every day and hadn’t noticed anything weird.

Then the day right before he disappeared he was…

fuck, not like himself at all. Kind of freaked the shit outta me to be honest. Maybe whatever’s happening is happening so fast that the people who get taken or whatever go right away before anyone can notice something’s off.

” He leaned back again, satisfied that he had blown the case wide open with that assessment.

Nathan leaned over the table, close to Iain with his voice low. “Iain, my brother and his…our other friend were going to check out some of the houses of the people that have gone missing, see if there’s any connection. You said the guy from before was your neighbor? Did you know any of the others?”

Iain’s smile stretched and he chuckled a little.

Nathan was starting to recognize that reacting that way was more how Iain dealt with nerves than anything.

“Used to only be people who went off hiking or something near the mine. With the new ones though, most of them are from the same few stretch of blocks near the edge of town. Hell, I probably knew all of those people to some extent. I live right in that area too. Been trying to convince my mom to move forever, but she just thinks I’m making shit up. ”

The sounds of Black Sabbath’s “Iron Man” rose from Nathan’s jeans as his phone started to go off. He was feeling a little antsy now but managed an apologetic smile to Iain before he reached into his pocket and answered the call. “What’s up, Jim?”

“We’ve hit every house, Nathan. They’re all—”

“Within the same few blocks. Yeah, we…we got that.”

“From the library guy?”

“Yeah,” Nathan said a little impatiently. “What else?”

“Definitely looks like the radius of the missing people points to the mine as the source. You?”

“We’re thinking that whatever’s seeping out from the mine has been getting worse.

We’re gonna have to be careful with this one.

Might start affecting us once we get close.

Seems it’s been picking up the pace of choosing victims and luring them off sooner, that’s why no one’s noticed people acting weird this time. ”

“Well, we did get one report,” Jim countered.

Sasha and Iain were carefully listening in. Normally, Nathan wouldn’t like having a civilian overhear so much, but since Iain had come to the same conclusions on his own, Nathan didn’t think it made much of a difference. “What happened?” he asked.

“Last house we stopped at, the Kranes? Mrs. Krane said she noticed her neighbor take off out of the house on foot like a bat outta hell less than an hour ago. Never seen her look so fierce, she said. I’m guessing that’s missing person number six now, right along the same row of houses.”

Nathan knew that Sasha could hear most of what Jim was saying but he didn’t think Iain had picked up on that last bit.

It made him feel a cold chill like icy breath on the back of his neck.

“Jim,” he said evenly, staring across the table at Iain.

“You got a name from the mailbox of that new victim’s house? ”

“Yeah,” Jim said, and Nathan knew his brother was calling from outside, probably looking right at it, “it says Wilde.”

“For the last time, no ,” Nathan ground out, “you aren’t going anywhere. You are gonna sit on your ass, stay calm, and wait until you hear from us. You are not coming out to that mine and that’s final.” Nathan sort of felt like he was chastising a small child instead of a grown man.

They had met up at Iain’s house with the near hysterical librarian in tow.

Nathan hadn’t thought the otherwise laid back guy could get so riled up, but he had been pacing back and forth in his living room since they arrived, ranting about how they had to let him come with, how he had to find out what was going on, he had to find his mother.

Nathan could sympathize but there was no way that was going to happen.

“Iain, listen to us,” Alex said in a much more friendly and patient tone than Nathan had been using, “we’ll do everything we can to find out what’s going on, but you have to accept that there might not be a happy ending here.

Either way, I can guarantee that you following after us will only make a bad outcome more likely. ”

At first Nathan had expected her to give the ‘we promise we’ll bring your mother back safe’ speech, the one Jim usually gave whenever there was someone to save.

It actually soothed Nathan a little that Alex thought more like he did, that you shouldn’t make promises you didn’t know for sure you could keep.

“If we can bring her back to you, we will, but you’re going to have to stay here,” she insisted.

“But it’s my mom ,” Iain said, pacing madly across the shag carpeting while a misplaced smile touched his face like he was halfway crazed with the knowledge of what was going on.

“It’s been just us practically my whole fucking life.

God damn, shit fucking, sonuva—” SLAM. Iain’s curses broke off as he banged a fist angrily against the wall of the living room.

“How can you tell me to stay calm? You don’t know what this is like . ”

Nathan’s teeth clenched tight and he reached up to grab Sasha’s arm before the incubus could make any angry comments about the cumulative loss of mothers and fathers in the room.

Sasha had been increasingly on edge since they arrived.

Nathan could tell that Jim was also more fidgety than usual and he had to wonder if they could feel the dark resonance of the mine since it was only a few miles away.

“I just…don’t know what to do,” Iain finally sighed in defeat, sinking straight to the floor against the wall. He let out a humorless laugh and scrubbed a hand down his face.

“The doing’s what we’re here for,” Alex said. “All you have to do is sit tight. But if we’re gonna be of any help, we gotta go now. Might get dark before we’re through, but I doubt we’ll be any better off if we wait until tomorrow morning.”

“We have to go to the caves,” Sasha said, seeming significantly more agitated the longer they remained inside the house.

“We have to,” Jim echoed. His left leg bounced anxiously. “If we wait, it’ll just get worse, more people will be drawn there. Something’s going on in that mine and we have to stop it. I can…I can feel the dark energy like it’s…like it’s—”

“Taunting us,” Sasha finished.