Page 62 of Incubus (The Incubus Saga #1)

Nathan was running through a large house he didn’t recognize with thousands upon thousands of rooms all blocked by closed doors. He knew that if he could just find the right door, he would be safe. Free. But every door Nathan tried, every room…held Jim, grinning at him with slit eyes.

When Nathan finally found an empty room, he tried to hide in it.

But the walls had eyes too, so many eyes, and they were all slit, all staring, watching Nathan and waiting to devour some secret part of him.

Nathan tried to block it all out, huddled in a corner on the floor of that empty room, but the eyes were closing in.

It was Sasha’s voice that called to Nathan in the dark, close beside his ear from behind. But that shouldn’t be possible because there was a wall behind him; Nathan could feel it at his back.

May the road always rise to meet you...

Too strong arms grabbed Nathan from behind, completely encasing him and smelling of Sasha. But they weren't comforting. They weren't gentle. They were not there to save him.

Why Sasha? Why Jim ? Why did the darkness have to look and feel like them? Nathan couldn’t see anything anymore, only black, but he could feel their hands, their arms, and hear Jim's awful laughter marring the words of the lullaby...

Nathan blinked slowly awake, shivering from the cold and the remains of his dream.

He had fallen asleep on top of the covers, completely nude.

Rolling toward Sasha’s side of the bed, Nathan sought out some of that indomitable incubus heat to help banish the unfair images and emotions that the nightmare had stirred within him, but he came upon chillingly cold emptiness in the bed beside him.

Sitting up sharply, Nathan stared at where Sasha should be, but wasn’t. He remembered that Sasha had left, but surely the incubus was back by now, unless Nathan had only dozed off for a moment. He checked the bedside clock to be sure, but it was already late the next morning.

“Walter,” Nathan croaked out, not even caring that he was naked as he swung his legs over the side of the bed and got up. “Is Sasha already up out there?”

Walter appeared in front of him, benign as always to any state Nathan might be in. “I did not follow him when he left, Nathan, since I had tried to give you privacy before then. I’m afraid I…don’t think he has been back.”

Nathan’s stomach twisted in his gut. “Well…maybe he couldn’t sleep and…went to get coffee or something. Will you…see if you can find him anywhere outside?”

The parallel of the situation was not lost on Nathan. After Jim was taken, Nathan had calmly asked the same thing of Walter before it became clear that Jim was not coming back.

Since Sasha had taken Nathan’s T-shirt when he went out the night before, Nathan was left with only his jeans. He slipped them on to leave the room as Walter faded away.

It was easy at first to pretend nothing was wrong.

Nathan retrieved fresh clothing from his bag out in the living room and ignored his brother’s teasing words about never having left Sasha’s room.

But once Kitty and Schuester were also up, and Walter had returned without so much as a guess at where Sasha might be, Nathan had to admit… the incubus was gone.

“Nathan?”

It was snowing in the back lot behind Schuester's apartment building, soft fluffy flakes falling consistently. Nathan hadn’t noticed at first. He wasn’t wearing a jacket and he hadn’t noticed the temperature had dropped low enough to snow.

“Nathan, should we check around the block again?” Jim asked, trying to be helpful and supportive, but they had checked around the block three times now.

Nathan stared at their borrowed vehicle in the lot as if what was broken had anything to do with a car. Nathan was what was broken. He didn’t have the strength for this. Not again. “I let this happen. I let him go alone.”

“Nate, come on,” Jim said. “It’s not that simple. We just need to think this through. What did he say when he left, again?”

Nathan closed his eyes, feeling wet flakes catch in his eyelashes. “Nothing. He was just going for a walk.”

“But maybe he gave some clue about where he was heading? Anything we can use. Just go over what happened again.”

“I told you already.”

“We need more details than that, Nathan.”

“Well I don’t have any!” Nathan yelled, whirling around to face Jim with his fists clenched at his sides.

“We fucked , okay? We had sex. Forgive me if that's the part that sticks out in my mind. Then...we laid there for a minute, and then he left. That’s it. For all I know…maybe that’s the real reason he left. ”

Jim’s eyes narrowed. “Maybe what’s the real reason he left? Because you slept together?”

“Why not? He got what he wanted finally. Why stick around?”

" Nathan ," Jim said in admonishment. "You don’t believe that. Sasha really cares about you. And you care about him. Something happened. Someone…took him."

Part of Nathan would rather his bitter theory be true, because at least then Sasha would still be okay somewhere. He leaned back against the car behind him, breathing in deep to find some sense of calm.

"He really did say he just needed air,” Nathan said.

“He had a lot of excess energy to burn after...feeding. He was so buzzed, he put on my T-shirt and grabbed your jacket you’d left in there.

That’s how I know he has his cell, even if he won’t freaking answer it.

The phone was still in your pocket.” Nathan scrubbed a hand over his face.

He felt only half awake and wished he was sleeping, wished he was dreaming.

“He didn’t just leave, Nate,” Jim said. “He wouldn’t do that.”

Nathan couldn't believe Sasha would just walk away either. Or fly, or whatever Sasha might have done that would make him just suddenly gone. There had to be another answer. Nathan didn’t know what he really felt for Sasha, but he knew that whatever had been there was gone now and he ached to feel it again.

“I keep reaching for my phone,” Nathan said with a choked laugh, “thinking…just maybe —”

The familiar notes of Nathan's ringtone rose up from his jeans and he froze. For a moment neither Nathan nor Jim moved at all, but as the phone continued to ring, Jim nudged Nathan to answer it, saying his name over and over until Nathan finally dug into his jean pocket and pulled out the phone.

‘Sasha’s cell’ blinked at Nathan miraculously.

“Holy shit…”

“ Nathan ,” Jim said, the connotation of ‘pick up the damn phone’ clearly present.

So Nathan did, forcing himself to be calm despite the erratic pattern of his heartbeat. “Sasha?”

“Nathan...?”

“Dude, where are you?” Nathan took off into a frenzied ramble. “Are you trying to kill me sooner? What the hell happened? You don’t just leave ."

“Leave? Nathan…I wouldn’t leave. I’d never…never just leave,” Sasha answered, sounding strangely young, like he was crying, or trembling, or... hurt .

“Sasha? What’s going on?” Nathan pressed, his heavy emotions falling prey to further worry.

“Nathan?” Sasha said again, like it was the first time, like he wasn’t sure if he was talking to Nathan at all. “I…I don’t know where I am. I’m so…so tired. Nathan?”

“I’m right here,” Nathan said, terrified as he lifted his eyes to Jim for some kind of reassurance, but Jim’s eyes were filled with terror too. “Sasha, what happened to you? Are you okay?”

There was a long pause, too long for Nathan to bear, and then the exhale of breath before someone spoke on the other end of the line was different. “I’m afraid the incubus is not well at the moment,” said a voice that Nathan recognized only too easily.

“ Gabriel ,” Nathan growled, so angry and scared that he was grinding his teeth hard enough to hurt. “What did you do to Sasha?”

Jim’s eyes were wide with similar panic as he leaned closer to the earpiece of the phone, listening beside Nathan.

“The incubus hasn’t been very forthcoming about which apartment you are in, or anything about the changeling’s powers,” Gabriel said, “so I have had to be a little…unfriendly."

“If you’ve laid a finger on Sasha, you sick son of a bitch…” Nathan threatened.

“Your compassion for monsters really is remarkable, Nathan. The incubus is alive, but I don’t have to keep him that way. He means nothing to me.”

Nathan wanted to strangle Gabriel through the phone for dismissing Sasha like that, like trash to be rid of. “Sasha trusted you once, damn it,” he spat at the phone. “He wanted to trust you. He’s never hurt a human being, not once.”

“I'm sure you believe that,” Gabriel said. “Now listen to me. Deliver your brother to the last empty building in the Warehouse District and I will let you go unharmed.”

“And what about Sasha?”

“The incubus will live for as long as he is useful.”

Then the line went silent.

Almost instantly the phone dropped from Nathan’s hand to land uncaringly in the snow at his feet. “We have to go now ,” Nathan said, and lunged for the driver’s side door.

“Nathan, hang on!” Jim called after him, scooping up the forgotten phone as he rushed around to the passenger side, though he spoke over the top of the hood to keep Nathan from leaving just yet. “We’re playing right into Gabriel’s hands if we go.”

“Gabriel wants you ," Nathan said, slamming a hand down on top of the hood and leaving a handprint from the snow still falling around them. "Sasha’s just bait. And bait’s expendable.”

They climbed into the car at the same time, their doors slamming shut with a unified resonance. That sound might have spurned Nathan on, but now there was a hollow ache where a third door slam should be.

“Do you have a plan?” Jim asked.

Nathan turned the key in the ignition and the car started with a glorified purr. “Plan? Yeah, I got a plan. Get Sasha. Get out. Don’t die. With a whole lot of 'kill Gabriel' in between. Sound good to you?”

“That’s your plan?”

“Yep.”

“Well, it’s childish, vague, and suicidally stupid .”

The change in Jim’s tone gave him away, so Nathan waited for the punch line.

“Good to know you’re feeling like yourself again,” Jim finished, smiling sideways at Nathan in a valiant attempt to make up for Nathan’s lack of wisecracking.

Nathan forced an answering smirk. “What can I say, Jim? I aim to please.”