Page 54 of Incubus (The Incubus Saga #1)

Jim and Nathan folded Sasha’s wings around his body to make it less awkward as they carried him to the car, but it made the incubus look even more like a corpse, wrapped in a shroud of black skin.

Jim looked completely sober by the time they reached the dumpster and his forgotten jacket.

They set Sasha down again so Jim could put his jacket on and also to give themselves a moment’s rest.

"There is no one nearby, Nathan," Walter said. "With the fresh air, I am certain Sasha will make it to Schuester's."

There was no lie in the words, which Nathan took some comfort in, but he had to wonder if there were things Walter was keeping from him. Walter had to have known Gabriel was their uncle. Nathan would have been angry about it, too, if he wasn't planning to keep that same secret from Jim.

Nathan remembered that coma victims were always hooked up to so many machines, one to watch their breathing, one for their heart rate, everything.

Sasha was just lying there on the ground with nothing to protect him, nothing to make sure he was okay except the constant vigil of Nathan’s eyes, checking to make sure he was still breathing.

That was all they would have during the drive to Schuester's too, and even after they got to Minnesota, there was no way to be sure they could find a way to fix this.

“I’ll go get our stuff,” Jim said after they had reached the car, already turning to head inside the motel.

Nathan was standing by the open back driver’s side door.

They had to lay Sasha slanted so his feet fell down onto the floor, but most of his chest and head were lying comfortably across the back seat.

“Jim…” Nathan wanted to get in the backseat with Sasha, wanted to hold the incubus close to his chest to keep him warm, keep him safe, something .

Jim seemed to understand. He paused and took a few steps back toward the car. “Give me the keys, Nathan. I’ll drive when I get back. It’s okay.”

“But…you drank too much,” Nathan said. He knew Jim was sober enough to drive now, but he still had to pretend like he was protesting.

Jim just smiled and held out his hand.

After tossing the keys over the hood, Nathan climbed into the backseat, carefully lifting Sasha’s upper body so he could slide in underneath and lay Sasha back down on top of his lap.

Sasha was heavy. Nathan’s legs would probably be asleep before Jim got back.

But Nathan didn’t care. He needed to feel that reassuring warmth.

Walter appeared in the front passenger seat, sitting calmly, and not pressing Nathan to talk or even really looking back save a few concerned glances.

It was an unconscious effort the way Nathan started combing his fingers through Sasha’s hair.

He liked it both short and long the way it was when he was changed.

Sasha’s skin was so white. Nathan usually forgot that with how much more he saw Sasha human but, as an incubus, he was pure white with faded greys on the way to the blackest pitch on his hands, feet, and wings.

Nathan could see the tattoos peeking out of Sasha’s low-riding jeans, and it made him smile a little.

The comfort of something normal, of something steady that Nathan saw every day, made the weight lessen, if only a little.

“Some happy birthday, right?” Nathan said softly. The fact that Sasha didn’t answer, couldn’t answer made Nathan ache a little more.

Jim came back down in record time so they could leave, but every bump in the road made Nathan want to curse, and he clung to Sasha, afraid that a particularly harsh jerk would cause Sasha to fall off his lap down between the seats.

Once they were on the highway, Jim called back, watching Nathan in the rearview mirror. “Want the radio?”

“Nah. I kind of like the quiet right now,” Nathan said. He knew that made Jim’s gaze linger, but he really did like the quiet. It made it easier to hear the gentle huffs of Sasha breathing.

“I’ll call Schuester when we get closer,” Jim said. “I’ll just tell him…I’ll tell him Sasha’s hurt and we don’t have anywhere else to go. We’ll worry about the ‘he’s also an incubus’ part later. Is Walter still with us?”

“Sitting right next to you. He says we've done all we can.”

Nathan couldn't really think about Schuester and what his reaction might be. He couldn't think about Walter. Or Gabriel. Or anything. He just wanted to figure out how to wake Sasha up. There had to be a way. Sasha couldn’t stay like that forever, frozen but still alive.

He just... couldn’t .

Hours passed and still Sasha lived, breathing the same steady rhythm. They didn’t stop once until they reached Schuester’s apartment building.

With Sasha wrapped in a blanket, they brought him upstairs using the freight elevator to avoid any early risers, hoping that Schuester wouldn’t notice that Sasha didn’t exactly look normal until after they got him inside.

It might have been a dirty trick, but Nathan and Jim weren’t in their right minds enough to care.

“Bring him into the guest room. It’s the closest,” Schuester directed them once they were inside.

Kitty observed them curiously from the living room, wearing bright pink footed pajamas, where she was supposed to be watching early morning cartoons.

Jim and Nathan carried Sasha into the guest room ahead of Schuester. They assumed he hadn’t noticed the horns and clawed feet quite yet, but there was no way they could hide the truth once Schuester came in behind them and started to help unwrap Sasha from the blanket.

Nathan expected shock or even a cry or look of revulsion. What he didn’t expect was Schuester's complete and utter disregard for Sasha’s incubus form as he checked Sasha’s forehead for a fever and inspected the sealed up wound on his chest.

“He’s been like this since ya left Chicago?” Schuester asked.

Nathan and Jim exchanged equally surprised glances before Jim said, “Yeah. No change.”

Schuester checked Sasha over for a few minutes but finally threw the same blanket back over him again to better keep the incubus warm.

“Hey," Nathan said, unable to stand how calm Schuester was acting. "You don’t seem too surprised to see him like this.”

Schuester looked across the bed at Nathan and Jim, and raised an eyebrow from beneath his thick black-framed glasses. “Well, neither do you . How long have you boys known?”

“Since we were last in Minnesota," Jim said. "How long have you known?”

Schuester smiled in his sad, understated way.

“Since a skinny sixteen-year-old redhead showed up on my doorstep. I've known Sasha longer than I've known the two of you, but never very well. I thought he was lyin’ at first when he said he was Deklin Kelly’s son. I crossed paths with Deklin when I was younger than you boys. But the more I talked with Sasha, the more I knew he had to be tellin’ the truth.

He has Deklin’s same smile, same walk, same way he carries himself.

I put the pieces together. Last I heard from Deklin, he had a new wife.

I imagine that if I had gotten the chance to meet her it would have been an interestin’ conversation. ”

Schuester walked around to the foot of the bed, and Nathan and Jim moved to meet him.

“I want to help, but I don’t know anythin’ special about how an incubus hurts or heals,” Schuester said. “I'm a collector, not a seal or a fae physiological expert. Yer going to have to tell me exactly what happened.”

So Nathan and Jim did. Every last detail. But when they were finished, Schuester still looked as lost as they were.

It made Nathan so angry. Sasha was warm and safe and lying on a real bed, but that did them little good if they couldn’t wake him.

“Sasha…?”

Nathan turned to the door of the bedroom to find Kitty peeking inside with wide interested eyes at Sasha's revealed form.

Walter was standing behind her, remaining in the hallway as if he felt it wrong to enter.

Nathan wanted to tell Walter that it was okay, but he had grown too used to not speaking to Walter in front of anyone other than his brother. ..and Sasha.

"It's okay, Kitty," Schuester said, crossing to his daughter. "I know Sasha might look a little scary right now, but you trust him, don't ya?"

To Nathan’s surprise, a bright awed smile spread across the girl’s face. “He looks so cool! Like an angel! Is he an angel?”

Nathan tried not to snort.

Maybe if angels had wanton sex with every prospect they met.

“Why is he sleeping?" Kitty asked, trotting into the room softly and stopping at the foot of the bed with her tiny form peering over the top of the mattress.

It was surreal hearing Schuester explain calmly that Sasha was not an angel but an incubus, that he was hurt and they didn't know how to wake him. The wave of sentimentality Nathan had been feeling washed out of him and his fists clenched tight at his sides.

They didn’t know how to wake him.

Nathan and the others left the room to better think of ways they might help Sasha, but everything felt so futile. Nathan was in such a daze with the rush of everything that had happened that he barely realized Schuester was pulling him aside until they were in the corner of the kitchen, alone.

"Nathan, I have no problem allowin’ Sasha safe harbor while we look for a way to heal him," Schuester said in hushed tones, "because I know even if worst came to worst and he was awake but out of control, he would be no threat to Kitty—even a frenzied incubus has no interest in someone who hasn’t come of age.

I do not feel that way about yer brother.

" He glanced out of the kitchen to watch his daughter and Jim in the living room as if he feared Jim might suddenly turn around and snatch her up like a storybook monster.

"Schu, really, can we not talk about this now," Nathan said.

"Ya need to understand the truth," Schuester insisted.

"All changelings kill their family in the end.

I had to learn that the hard way with Avery and her brother.

I'm just a man, I have no abilities or special senses, and even I can tell that Jim is changin’.

He is not the same boy he was when I first met ya. "

"Of course he isn't," Nathan nearly growled, too frazzled to handle this now. "Neither am I. He's not Awakened, Schu, and he's nowhere near it. He barely has control over his powers."

"And that reassures ya?"

“Hey!" Jim called, practically jogging over to them.

"What is it?" Nathan asked, glad for the interruption.

"I think I thought of something else we might try,” Jim said. He reached into his pocket and pulled out Sasha’s cell phone, something he had been careful to claim from Sasha’s leather jacket before they left the pieces of it back in the alleyways of Chicago.

It took Nathan a moment to understand what Jim was implying.

“Do it,” Nathan said, firmly and uncaring to the consequences. “I think it’s about time we met Sasha’s other aunt.”