Page 63 of Incubus (The Incubus Saga #1)

Nathan recognized the type of building they would be dealing with as soon as they reached the Warehouse District. It was empty, probably had been for months or even years, meaning that unlike a working warehouse or factory, it was filled with large empty rooms and few hiding places.

Either Gabriel was very stupid or he had everything planned out so well that he didn’t need hiding places.

Nathan hated to give Gabriel any credit but he was pretty sure things had to be the latter. There was no guarantee Sasha was even in there, but Nathan had enough incentive that he couldn’t care that this was so obviously a trap.

Before getting out of the car, Nathan glanced at the rearview mirror, not surprised to find Walter visible with a look of clear concern and even a little guilt.

“This isn’t your fault, Walt,” Nathan said. “Why would you think to follow him? You’re supposed to watch me. It isn’t anybody’s…fault.” Nathan’s lips twitched despite his words, because he didn’t really believe no one was at fault.

“Nathan,” Jim said, always so good at reading what Nathan was thinking the way Sasha was so good at knowing how he felt—practically supernatural.

“Let’s go.”

They got out of the car, but Nathan stopped Jim when he made to go around to the other side of the building.

“We’re not doing that again,” Nathan said. “Gabriel wants us to split up. He wants you alone, Jim. We’re going in together.”

After barely a moment’s pause, Jim nodded. The snow had started coming down harder, still light fluffier flakes with little wind, but it was enough that Nathan had to blink several times to see his brother clearly through the curtain of white.

Since there was no chance of taking Gabriel by surprise, going through the main doors seemed just as logical as anywhere else.

Nathan and Jim positioned themselves on either side of the double doors, pleased that the area seemed deserted because worrying about people passing by and noticing their readied guns was more than a slight annoyance.

Nathan had an extra gun tucked in his jeans, as well as his ankle blade. He had almost grabbed a shotgun but, as satisfying as blowing a whole through Gabriel’s chest would be, it wasn’t as practical.

Almost like trained professionals, much as they weren't actual seals, Nathan and Jim stormed inside the building, guns cocked and steady, with their eyes darting like soldiers on the front lines to secure all immediately visible areas. The main entrance led into the largest part of the warehouse with the other rooms leading off elsewhere through closed doors. Those doors posed the most threat, but what Nathan and Jim couldn’t figure out was why the main area, so open and bare, held no sign of Gabriel, but did reveal the alarming sight of Sasha in a chair in the middle of the room.

The incubus was slumped forward, tied to the chair, and unconscious rather than dead if his heavy breathing was any indication. He was still wearing Nathan’s T-shirt.

“Where’s the trap?” Nathan whispered to his brother.

They remained nearly shoulder to shoulder or back to back as they moved further into the warehouse. Nathan looked up at the ceiling, especially the area above Sasha’s head, but he couldn’t see anything suspicious. The walls were just as bare.

“I don’t see anything,” Jim whispered back. “You don’t think he booby trapped the chair, do you?”

Now Nathan was even more anxious, but he didn’t think Gabriel seemed the pyrotechnic type. The chair looked clean, something Gabriel had probably pulled out of one of the rooms. They could see almost all of it, even with how Sasha was slouched.

Inching closer, eyes and ears still perked to every possible sign of ambush, and guns more than ready to take a shot at anything that moved other than Sasha, Nathan and Jim eventually were close enough to be sure there was no immediate danger.

There was a table behind Sasha. On top of it rested Jim’s coat that Sasha had taken and three empty vials that looked like they would have held some of Sasha’s normal antidote.

That didn’t make any sense to Nathan, but neither did the fact that Sasha was breathing when the incubus’ arms, neck, and face were covered in cuts that Nathan could only assume were made by iron.

“Jesus,” Jim said, risking a moment to stop his watchfulness of their surroundings and reaching for the hem of Sasha’s borrowed shirt. The T-shirt rose up a little, Sasha’s torso being longer than Nathan’s, and revealed a trail of more cuts as Jim lifted the shirt up past Sasha’s ribs.

The cuts were everywhere.

Nathan moved to untie Sasha’s hands from the chair, just barely finishing the task when Sasha gave a sudden start and his eyes fluttered open.

Both brothers crouched on either side of the incubus as he came to.

Now that he was untied, Sasha started to slouch further and Nathan had to steady him with his hands on Sasha's shoulders.

Immediately, Sasha tried to pull away, his face contorting with pain. “No…st-stay away…” he said, teeth chattering. Sasha’s skin felt ice cold to Nathan’s touch even though Nathan was the one who had just come inside from the snow.

“Sasha, it’s okay,” Jim said, steadying Sasha on the other side. “It’s us. Nathan and Jim.”

“No,” Sasha said again, his eyes barely focusing as they turned to each of the brothers, bloodshot and filled with those awful blue veins.

The cuts showed signs of the veins too, but only in the immediate areas, not spreading out and joining together the way they should have.

“You’re…you’re not…you’re not them. I’m… imagining you again.”

Hearing Sasha say that, his voice near tears and so childlike, crushed something in Nathan. “Look at me,” Nathan said, pulling Sasha’s face toward him and trying to find some recognition in the dim blue eyes. “See, it’s Nathan. It’s not your imagination. I’m right here.”

Even blinking wearily at Nathan’s face, Sasha just shook his head. “No…how can Nathan…find me? He doesn’t know where I am.”

“Gabriel told us where to find you,” Nathan assured him, hating the way Sasha spoke as if he wasn’t crouched there right in front of him. “Do you know where he is?”

Again, Sasha blinked slowly at Nathan’s face, his expression sagging with fatigue and confusion. “He has…a name?”

Clearly, Sasha wasn’t in his right mind, and Nathan didn’t know how to respond. He was pleased when Jim took on the burden, putting a hand on Sasha’s knee to get his attention.

“Sasha, you know his name. You know him, remember? He’s an old…friend of your dad’s.” Jim paused understandably on the word ‘friend’.

Now Sasha was blinking at Jim and seemed to be thinking Jim’s words over as his mind cleared enough to remember. “Gabriel…” he said slowly, his voice dreamy and far away. “Like the angel.”

Nathan tried not to choke on the words that left him. “Gabriel’s no angel, Sasha. Now come on, focus. Where is he? We need to find him and take care of things before we get you out of here.”

Sasha’s eyes drifted up to the ceiling, a million miles away. “Nathan…thinks I left him. But I…I would never leave.”

Nathan grabbed Sasha’s face in both hands, hating himself for how Sasha flinched at having the cuts touched. “Sasha, I’m right here. Nathan . Touching you with real hands, my hands. You feel that, don’t you?” Nathan was afraid for a moment that maybe all Sasha could feel was pain.

But then those tired, marred blue eyes were blinking again and Nathan saw the spark he had been waiting for. “Nathan…?”

“Yeah,” Nathan grinned. “We’re going to get you out of here, okay? Everything’s going to be okay.”

Nathan knew he sounded patronizing like he was talking to some injured child, but that was exactly how things felt. Sasha was damaged in some way that dimmed his senses and his thoughts, just as Nathan remembered from back in Minnesota the first time he had seen those veins.

“Do you know where Gabriel is?” Nathan tried again, slow and direct.

Sasha shook his head.

“Okay,” Jim said, squeezing Sasha’s knee again. “Do you know what he did to you? Are all these cuts from iron?”

Slowly, Sasha started to nod. “Hurts…” he said like a whimper, “… everywhere . He didn’t…want me to…say I’m Deklin’s son. But I am…aren’t I?” Sasha’s eyes turned imploring and desperate as they looked between the brothers.

“Of course you are,” Jim said, so much better at the comforting tone and assurances than Nathan. “But stay with us. If Gabriel cut you with iron then how are you okay? The poison looks like it’s working through your body differently this time. Is it like before, just an alloy?”

Sasha shook his head again. “Real iron, but…but if we drink the antidote…without putting it on the wound…sometimes it can…slow it down, but still…still hurts. I can…feel it under my skin.”

Killing Gabriel wasn’t good enough anymore. Now Nathan wanted the bastard to suffer.

“Nathan, take Sasha to the car.”

Nathan gave a start, pulling out of his thoughts to stare at Jim. “Excuse me? Were you not listening before when I talked about the no-splitting-up part to the plan? It’s exactly what Gabriel wants, Jim. Let’s just get out of here.”

“No. Don’t you understand, Nathan?” Jim said, hardened by determination.

“Why do you think Gabriel’s playing it this way?

He knows it doesn’t matter if he’s here in this room when we find Sasha.

Finding Sasha like this, and with the way things have gone before now, he knows we can’t just leave.

He knows we’ll have to go looking for him, right into the rooms he probably has traps in.

And he’s right. We have to. We can’t just leave again, Nathan, and wait for something like this to happen again . It needs to end now.”

“Back up to the part about him having expected us to do this,” Nathan countered. “You’re right, he almost for certain has those rooms booby trapped or God knows what, and you’re just going to play right into his game? I don’t want to give him another chance to ambush us later, but damn it, Jim—”

“I’m going, Nathan,” Jim said, standing up and passing his hand over Sasha’s hair so that the incubus looked up at him vaguely. “It’s me he wants anyway. He doesn’t know everything that I can do. I can use that to my advantage. No alcohol getting in the way this time.”

“Jim, wait. You don’t know all you can do. At least let me have Walter—”

“I’m going,” Jim said again, turning his head to stare down at Nathan with a fierce look that made Nathan’s throat close up because there was an apology in those eyes too.

“ Don’t follow me ,” Jim said, and with all of Nathan’s strength, he wouldn’t have been able to even as Jim walked away, gun ready, toward one of the closed doors.

As soon as Jim disappeared into that other room, and thankfully no explosion, sound of gunfire, or other telling horror followed, Nathan was able to move and think clearly again. He would have to have a very severe talk with Jim about how he was not allowed to mojo him .

Nathan got to his feet, helping Sasha stand as well with careful attention.

Sasha hissed at the hold Nathan had on him, touching cuts that had to sting horribly.

Most of the antidote was in the trunk of the car outside, all of what they knew remained of Sasha’s stash, but there wasn’t time to attend to the many wounds.

Jim was willingly walking into a trap and Nathan was not just going to allow it.

“Walter, he said I can't follow him,” Nathan spoke aloud to their surroundings, knowing Walter would appear, and focusing hard on his Spirit Guide once he did, “but that doesn’t mean you can't, and it doesn't mean I can’t try getting to him through one of the other doors. That’s just…exploring. Yeah. I’m not following.

Hell, I don’t want to find Jim. I want to get to that asshole Gabriel first and ram my gun up his ass. ”

And since none of that was a lie, Nathan had no trouble overriding Jim's power to let him work his way to the door next to the one Jim had gone through.

"Nathan, are you sure?" Walter asked from behind him.

"I'm sure, Walt. You stick with Jim. I got Sasha."

Walter nodded before he vanished.

“Traps…” Sasha said so lightly that Nathan barely heard him.

“Yeah, I know,” Nathan said. He looked down at Sasha slumped against him. “Hey…I shouldn’t have moved you. I should leave you here. You’ll be safer here.”

“No!” Sasha pleaded in a terrified childlike voice, clinging to Nathan’s waist with his free arm while the other was hoisted around Nathan’s shoulders. “Don’t leave me, Nathan…please, don’t leave me.”

Nathan knew it was stupid to take Sasha, too much of a burden and hindrance on his own abilities with a taller, larger body attached to him, but he couldn’t go against those scared eyes and desperate pleas. “Okay, but then you’re going to have to stay focused for me and help. Can you do that?”

Sasha nodded. Having something to focus on seemed to help clear his mind.

“Okay. Then you keep an eye open in case I miss something. And hey, you know anything about what Gabriel’s got set up in here?”

“Something…I think,” Sasha said, searching his memories with obvious difficulty. “Something about…wires…and…weapons…and runes.”

“Well…only one way to know for sure.”