Page 22 of Incubus (The Incubus Saga #1)

“Wrong?” Nathan said, frowning as he pushed up out of his chair. “Damn it. Come on, Jim. We better go check on him.”

Nathan knew only too well what it was like to lose family. He couldn’t imagine what Sasha must be going through having to explain to one aunt that they had killed the other one.

Sasha’s voice became distinguishable the moment Nathan and Jim exited the hotel’s main door, even from all the way around the back of the building.

Sasha didn’t notice them at first when they joined him behind the hotel.

He was half facing the wall and half facing away from them at the fields beyond the town, but his body language was as telling as his tone—shoulders tight, free hand clenched, the quick shuffling pace of his feet.

“No, I’m not!” Sasha yelled into his phone, revealing a touch of the growl Nathan had heard when they saw Sasha in his incubus form. “Because it’s not the same, Shi! You know it isn’t! This isn’t fair!”

Sasha paused only to listen to the voice on the other end of the line. When he spoke again, his own voice had lowered a few decibels, but not by much.

“Yes. Yes, they’re good guys, and you can sleep a little easier knowing I’m not out here alone. But that doesn’t mean I don’t—” He cut off abruptly, making a sharp turn to the wall that gave Nathan and Jim a view of his stiff profile.

Sasha’s face was almost as red as his hair.

Nathan grabbed Jim by the arm and pulled him tight to the wall around the corner to keep them hidden.

Sasha’s voice filtered over to them. “Shi…if there had been any other way…” he said, trailing. “I just…I can’t accept this. I didn’t do anything wrong. I’m out here trying to help people!”

A tug on Nathan’s sleeve made him glance up to find a very concerned Jim. Nathan just shrugged and shook his head. He missed whatever Sasha said next, but a moment later he heard Sasha spout some angry goodbyes and there was the sharp click of a cell phone flipping closed too fast.

The silence that followed was thick. Nathan risked peering around the corner and saw that Sasha was still facing the wall. He had his cell phone in his left hand, but his right was pulled into a tight fist.

Reeling back with something of an inhuman roar, Sasha punched the brick in front of him so hard that there was a definite crack, and, by the look of the aftermath, the blow did more damage to the wall.

Sasha’s right hand had become that of his incubus self, black and taloned.

Nathan saw a snarl on Sasha’s face that showed the hint of fangs, and when Sasha turned, finally sensing that he was no longer alone, his eyes were red.

“You keep being this sloppy and someone’s gonna cry incubus,” Nathan said, not trying to hide that he and Jim were there. He tossed Sasha a grin as he walked over.

The redhead's features immediately morphed into his human disguise. “Yeah…I swear I’m not usually so stupid,” he said, and turned with a grimace to look at the dent left in the bricks.

“You okay?” Jim asked. “I’m guessing your aunt didn’t take the news too well.”

“No, it’s not that,” Sasha said. “She understood. The Council of Elders told her about the body right away, so…she already knew. She’s disappointed, but…in Sabine, not me. She’s not angry with me.”

“Then if that argument wasn’t about her reaction to the hunt…” Nathan said, waiting for Sasha to fill in the blanks.

Blue eyes looked up, a little too bright-looking, like maybe Sasha was trying too hard to make them look human after losing control.

“The Council…knows it was me,” he said. “I don’t know what I thought they’d do, how I thought they’d react.

I knew they wouldn’t retaliate by coming after us.

Sabine had to be stopped. But now…I’m just a kinslayer to them.

I’ve been a seal for years, but I…I’ve never killed my own. ”

Jim moved closer to Sasha, placing a hand on his arm like he had that night in the alley, a simple ‘I’m here for you’ gesture and accompanying expression of empathy that Nathan could never quite get the hang of.

Nathan wanted to do something too, but he couldn’t think of anything that wouldn’t seem completely inadequate.

He looked to Walter, who had remained visible during their trek to the back of the building, and thought he understood what it must be like for Walter all the time, only capable of little more than watching.

“They…they told my aunt to tell me…” Sasha said, clenching his eyes shut as if to stay tears. “I’m not…allowed to go back. Ever. They won’t let me go home.”

Jim’s hand gave an instinctive squeeze as a stray tear escaped down Sasha’s face. Sasha was managing rather nobly to keep from crying outright, so Nathan wasn’t about to grudge him that.

Nathan didn’t know what it was like to have a home anymore.

He and Jim had been transients since before they were teenagers.

But, although Sasha lived a similar life to theirs being a seal, he also lived another one.

He was an incubus. He had family. Even if he rarely got the chance to go home to that part of the Veil, he had always been able to go back when he wanted to.

“I can’t believe they banished you just like that,” Jim said. “How can they do that if they understand it needed to be done? It isn’t right. You did what they couldn’t so they punish you? And you didn’t even do it, I mean…I struck the blow. Maybe…maybe you can tell them—”

“It won’t matter. It was my hunt. My responsibility,” Sasha said.

“It’s all the same to the Council. They’d probably say I should have…

caught her and brought her home for rehabilitation.

Right,” he huffed. “You can’t change hundreds of years of psychological progression. She didn’t give me a choice.”

“No. She didn’t,” Nathan said, and he said it with more finality than Sasha had, because he figured Sasha needed a little convincing.

“She would have killed that girl. In the fight, might have killed any one of us. It was our hunt and we did what we had to. If those elders want to think differently, let ‘em. You’re not getting kicked to the curb by us. You’d be more likely to run away after putting up with us for a while longer. ”

Sasha laughed at Nathan’s try for humor, even despite his drying tears, but he didn’t look truly soothed. “Come on,” he said, wiping quickly at his eyes before forcing a smile. “We have another stakeout to get to, remember? We should go.”

Nathan could tell Jim wanted to say more, convince Sasha to talk to them, as was his nature, but sometimes it was best to let things settle. Nathan nodded and let Sasha move past him, giving Jim as severe a look as he could manage to leave things alone for now. Jim didn’t contradict him.

There was a heaviness in the air as they returned to the hotel and, while it grew lighter with each step back to their rooms, a shadow of it lingered well into the night.

When the sun started to dip below the horizon and Nathan and the others were ready to head to the house on 4 th street, they walked the few blocks from the hotel.

The house was a well-kept beige and white split-level surrounded by neighbors. It was everything a suburban home should be, complete with neatly cut grass, somewhat eerie looking lawn gnomes, and wouldn’t have been worth much note at all if they didn’t know there was a fae inside.

“What if she’s not home?” Jim asked.

“Then we stick around until she gets back,” Sasha said. “If she is inside, we need to wait for some sign or cue that she really is a dark fae before we act. Right now I can’t sense anything enough to be sure. Can you, Jim?”

Jim shook his head.

“We’ll take things slow then. I’ll go to the back. Nate, you go around to the other side, and Jim, you stay on this one. Keep your eyes open. We’ll get her.”

Nathan moved stealthily across the backyard as the three of them parted ways. Walter had yet to vanish from Nathan’s side, and would constantly teleport right in front of him whenever Nathan got too far ahead.

Another such appearance had Nathan nearly jumping out of his skin when he reached the detached garage on the other side of the house to find Walter waiting for him.

“Stop that!” Nathan hissed. “How am I supposed to be sneaky when you’re making me jump at shadows?”

“Something is wrong, Nathan,” Walter said. “Sasha and Jim cannot sense anything here. Neither can I. That either means that the woman you mean to watch is not fae at all, or one so powerful she can keep herself veiled. You might need me.”

What Nathan needed was to move closer to the front of the house so he could actually see inside. There were no windows with clear views from his vantage point.

“Nathan—”

“If you’re so worried then why don’t you try being useful?” Nathan snapped. “I’m going to try and get a good view from out here. You wanna help, Walt? Go in there and tell me what you see.”

Walter took a breath, or at least gave the appearance of doing so since he didn’t actually breathe.

He always looked the same physically, same age, same somewhat tussled blonde hair and simple black slacks and white button-down shirt.

Walter’s expressions were the only things about him that ever changed.

It bothered Nathan that even after so many years he still wasn’t always able to read them.

“As you wish,” Walter said, and vanished on the spot.

Nathan sighed. It was completely dark outside now with the sun long set.

The small residential area they were in had only one street light on either end of the block, but Nathan still felt exposed when he started to move from the garage to the side of the house so he could creep closer to the front windows and look inside.

Peering around the corner, even from a strained angle, Nathan could finally see the woman they believed to be their quarry.

She was sitting in an armchair, her long dark hair loose around her shoulders, and wearing jewel tone colors that made her skin seem to glow. It looked as if she was talking to someone, but Nathan couldn’t see the full extent of the living room to tell who else might be inside.

A few minutes passed of a conversation Nathan was unable to hear, and then the woman got up and left the room.

Nathan crouched low, debating whether or not he should sneak closer around the front to keep the woman in his sights, or simply trust that Sasha and Jim would pick up the slack.

“Nathan!”

Walter’s voice had Nathan whipping around, shocked when he discovered the dark haired woman standing barely a foot from him. He had seen her inside the house only moments before, but somehow she had managed to sneak up on him.

Walter was visible next to her, but he was flickering, staring with wide, horrified eyes at both of them. Then he was gone.

"Who are you?" the woman asked in a surprisingly calm voice for finding a stranger on her property in the middle of the night. She really was radiant up close in a way that only fae could manage.

"Uhh..." Nathan leaned away from her, itching to reach for a gun or his ankle blade. He considered making a break for it, just turning and running to avoid confrontation, but when he glanced over his shoulder to see if the way was clear, he saw the same dark haired woman approaching him.

Nathan jerked back against the house. The original woman had not moved. She was still standing in front of him.

There were two of them .

Pivoting back and forth between the women, Nathan knew he was in serious trouble, especially if Walter was unable to appear before him. Adult twins did not dress alike—he and Jim certainly didn't—but these women were identical in every way even down to their jewelry.

They closed in on Nathan, smiling at him in a perfect reflection of each other.

"Oh…we know you," said the second woman.

"Yes, now I see. You're Nathan Grier," said the first.

"The one with the prized bounty on his head—"

"—for stealing away his big brother."

"What do you want with us?" they spoke together.

Nathan pressed himself tighter to the side of the house. These women were sidhe. They had to be. But the truth of just how bad the situation really was appeared before Nathan as a third identical woman joined the other two.

"Shit. Weird Sisters."

The newest woman laughed. She had something menacing in her suddenly slit eyes that looked almost black. "You know your lore, Nathan Grier," she said. "Tell us—"

"Yes, tell us," echoed the others.

"What lies inside of you ?"