Page 50 of Incubus (The Incubus Saga #1)

“Iron,” Nathan said through clenched teeth. The poison worked fast enough when Sasha wasn’t fighting for his life and running a marathon.

“Jim,” Sasha said firmly, shaking his head when the elevator doors opened. “We have to…wake him.”

“And we will. After we get—”

“He has…some of the antidote in the room,” Sasha insisted. “He said it would be smart if…he carried some too, in case…” Sasha lifted his bleeding hands again.

“Okay, come on,” Nathan said, guiding Sasha down the hallway with one hand around the incubus' waist for support.

The room was dark when they entered, but they hadn’t yet heard any sounds of galloping feet or the elevator returning.

“Jim, wake up!” Nathan called to the figure planted face-first into a pillow. He helped Sasha sit on the unoccupied bed and then went over to rummage through Jim’s duffle. “Wake up!” he called again, glancing back briefly at Sasha. “Any idea where he keeps the stuff?”

Sasha shook his head.

Nathan spent all of thirty seconds looking through the bag before he gave up. “Jim!” he yelled right in Jim’s ear.

A groan responded and Jim’s arms came up like they were trying to swat Nathan away.

“This is serious! Sasha’s hurt. Where do you keep the antidote?”

Another groan.

“Jim!” Nathan grabbed his brother and flipped him over none too gently, met by a twisted, resentful face that squinted up at him. “Jim, Gabriel is coming up to our room to kill you right now! Sasha has iron poisoning his veins! We do not have time for you to sober up!”

Finally, Nathan’s bellowing seemed to knock some sense into Jim’s alcohol-riddled brain. “ What ?” he said, eyes wide with panic but still glazed. “Gabriel? Here? But how did he—”

“The antidote!” Nathan yelled.

Jim blinked a few times, looked over to find Sasha pale and shaking on the other bed, and immediately turned back to Nathan with clearer eyes. “Coat pocket,” he said. “I always keep some in there.”

Nathan didn’t stop to ask why Jim hadn’t thought to mention this brilliant idea to him earlier, but went straight for Jim’s coat hung over one of the room’s chairs.

He found a vial in the first pocket, beautiful luminescent green.

It had only been a few minutes, but already Sasha didn’t look good.

Those sickly veins Nathan remembered from so long ago were already spreading out over Sasha’s arms and up his neck.

Opening the vial, Nathan poured some on his finger and ran it over the cut on Sasha’s arm, watching it fizzle and disappear.

He did the same to each of Sasha’s hands and then handed the vial to Sasha for him to drink the rest. Sasha’s hands were still a little shaky, so Nathan had to help guide the vial to Sasha’s mouth.

“Twice now,” Sasha smiled as green fire shot through his body and his eyes flashed red. “My knight in shining…blue jeans.”

Nathan snorted. “Yeah, well, you saved me first. Gabriel might have gotten that shot off if you hadn’t tackled him. Now let’s go.” Nathan stood and glanced over at his brother, who was sitting up rubbing his temples like he had the worst headache. “We are so screwed.”

What Gabriel had said out in the parking lot and his true relation to them plagued Nathan's thoughts, but there was no point in mentioning it now.

“We just need to get away from the motel,” Sasha said, standing a little unsteadily. “There are a lot of warehouses in this neighborhood. If we could lure him to one—”

“And then what? We’re unprepared again and no one...” Nathan said, lifting his leg up onto the bed to show where he was bleeding from the bullet that had grazed him. “No one is at their best. I say we make a break for the doorway and get the hell out of here.”

“No,” Jim said from the bed. “He’ll just come after us again, and we’ll be right back here a third time and a fourth, and…

Gabriel has to die.” His eyes flashed not unlike Sasha’s, the blue of them suddenly more intense.

“I could…use my powers. Sasha’s still stronger than any normal human. And you…well…we have weapons.”

Nathan tried not to roll his eyes at his inebriated brother. “Yeah, we have weapons and Sasha’s strong. But Gabriel had a charm against your powers, Jim, remember? And Sasha's not exactly in perfect condition right now.”

“I won't use the…control stuff,” Jim said, shaking his head a little too wildly. “Maybe…maybe telekinesis.”

Nathan didn’t have time to comment before one of the water glasses Sasha had set on the nightstand for Jim shot across the room and shattered against the wall.

Jim grimaced. “Mmm…maybe not.”

“Oh for crying out loud!” Nathan said in exasperation, dropping to his knees in front of Jim and placing a hand on each of Jim’s thighs. “Jim, you are drunk, Sasha and I are both hurt enough that it could slow us down, and we have no time. We need to get out of the motel.”

“If we can lure him to an alley,” Sasha broke in, “somewhere we can hide, wait until he gets close, and then ambush him—”

“No,” Nathan said firmly.

“But…but he’s right, Nathan,” Jim said, his hands sliding into place over Nathan’s. “We leave our stuff. Just take what we need for weapons. We can end this.”

Nathan couldn't get over that being a bad idea, but when he looked up into Jim’s eyes, despite them being hazy from drinking, he saw the same determination he could see in the sober eyes of Sasha.

It wasn’t a good idea, but maybe it was better than running.

“Walter!” Nathan called, pushing back up onto his feet.

Walter appeared with a clear expression of concern.

“Try and see if you can find where Gabriel is right now. When it’s clear, we’ll move, but we have to go soon. And pray we’re not absolutely out of our minds.”

Getting back down to the first floor wasn’t the hard part.

Walter couldn’t be sure where Gabriel was, unable to sense him as anything different than any of the other normal humans tucked away in their rooms, but he could be sure where Gabriel wasn’t and lead Nathan and the others out to the parking lot.

Despite Nathan’s slight limp now that his adrenaline was cooling, Sasha’s fatigue from recent poisoning, and Jim’s drunken stumbling, they made it outside without incident.

Nathan had a gun hidden in his coat with an extra clip in his pocket, and Sasha had a gun tucked away safely as well. Jim would have to do with what powers he could use, if any. The rest of their belongings they had left in their room.

“I don’t see him,” Sasha whispered, looking sharply around the parking lot. They walked with Jim between them just in case he crumbled to the ground.

“Why doesn’t that make me feel any better?” Nathan said.

The parking lot was empty of people. They had chosen a motel in that specific neighborhood because it was quieter and close to the Veil doorway. Nathan glanced at their car's tires, remembering the Gatehouse. They looked fine.

“We can still make a break for it,” he said.

“But our stuff,” Jim said, looking up at the motel.

“It does seem a little too easy,” Sasha said, bending over to look at the car more closely, as if he half expected to find a bomb hidden under the carriage.

“Walter?” Nathan called.

“The way seems to be clear, Nathan,” Walter said from nearby, though his expression was equally wary.

Looking away from the car, Nathan noticed that Jim had started wandering out into the more open part of the parking lot. Jim was looking up, almost as if he was enjoying the few dim stars, but Nathan recognized the worried look on his brother’s face.

“He's watching us…” Jim said softly to the air. Then he jerked to the side, just in time as a bullet whizzed past his head and struck one of the cars behind him.

“Jim!” Nathan called, racing for his brother.

Sasha’s voice yelled after him. “Nathan, up there!”

Nathan risked a look back but not before he had reached Jim and started pulling him aside. Gabriel was visible in a window on the fourth floor of the motel, maybe he was even in their room, and he had his gun steadied on Jim.

All Nathan cared about was moving fast and getting out of the line of fire, even with Jim’s feet stumbling along beside him. He saw Gabriel disappear from the window soon after.

Sasha indicated an alley up ahead. With Jim in tow, they quickly ducked down it.

“At what point did we think this would be a good idea again?” Nathan said bitingly. He called ahead to Sasha in front of them. “Any more brilliant plans, Starsky?”

“Does that make me Hutch or you Hutch?” Jim asked.

How Jim could manage to still dodge a bullet on instinct was beyond Nathan.

Sasha seemed to be looking for a place they could hide, which Nathan didn’t really consider a better alternative to continuing to run.

“He'll have to regroup again,” Sasha said. “It'll be a moment before he can come after us and realizes where we went.”

“Even if he does come down here,” Nathan said, slowing his pace since he was winded and Jim was heavy even moving mostly on his own power, “do you have a plan or are we just hoping for dumb luck here?” He grabbed Sasha’s shoulder when the incubus stopped in front of him.

Then Nathan realized what Sasha was staring at. “A dumpster?”

Sasha grinned as he turned around. “Jim,” he said slowly, “all I need you to do when I give the word…is concentrate as hard as you can.”

One or two agonizing minutes passed before Gabriel's footsteps were heard running down the alley. He was otherwise very quiet, moving swiftly and precise. Walter was standing out in the middle of the alley keeping watch for when Gabriel grew closer.

Nathan could feel Sasha’s breath on his hair as they waited, and Jim’s more labored breathing against his cheek that smelled faintly of alcohol and lemon from the Long Island.

They were huddled tight together on the hidden side of the dumpster, easily visible once Gabriel got past it, but not until he came further down the alley.