Page 36 of Sidhe (The Incubus Saga #3)

It struck Nathan as odd that Malak would want someone like this, if Solrin really was so against all things inhuman, but then he was a changeling, and had to know what he was considering his powers—or didn’t he?

Nathan didn’t doubt that Malak had a plan, that the dark sidhe knew things they didn’t.

So if it had to be up to Nathan to sway this guy and also greatly change his perspective, then by god, he hoped they were doing the right thing.

As soon as they were out of the morgue, Nathan did his best to keep the contents of his stomach inside where they belonged. At least they had been able to sneak inside without much trouble. Small towns didn’t think much about tight security over dead bodies.

“Why did there have to be human teeth marks?” Nathan said with a deep shudder as they settled back into the car. “Of course it still could just be a serial killer, taking the kids out first and then… Jesus …”

Jim chewed on his bottom lip as he thought things over.

“Coroner report said no foreign substances but that each of their hearts had stopped before any…eating began. Not even recreational narcotics or plain old over the counter meds for any of those kids. Couldn’t have been a chemical thing.

But human teeth? We might not even be dealing with fae, but…

I don’t think it’s as simple as a serial killer. ”

He turned to Nathan a little nervously, or maybe he was just unsure and didn’t quite know how to explain himself.

“When we dropped Sasha and Solrin off,” Jim said, “I thought maybe I…sensed something in the town. It was really faint so I sort of let it go, thought maybe it was just something innocuous because Solrin’s around and…

well, draws things. But now I’m thinking maybe I was sensing what we’re looking for.

It felt kind of human, but…not. Felt familiar. ”

“Familiar?” Nathan said. “Like maybe you know this guy or girl personally or it’s just a type of thing we’ve come across before?”

Jim’s brow scrunched a little further. “Just a type of thing. But I want to talk to Sasha and Solrin before I make any guesses. I’ll let them know we’re heading back.”

Nathan revved up the car and pulled back onto the road while Jim texted a message to Sasha. “That guy better have taken good care of my baby,” Nathan grumbled to himself.

He sighed relief when he spotted Solrin and Sasha coming from across the street just as he parked.

They had decided to meet up by the ball field, one of the few recognizable landmarks in the tiny town.

There were less than 300 people that lived there so there wasn’t a lot of ground to cover.

Nathan hoped that meant they had something more to go on than human teeth marks and stopped hearts.

“Sasha look a little spooked to you?” Jim asked from beside him.

Nathan glanced out the window again. Sasha and Solrin were coming around the side of the ball field, just a few yards away.

They were walking basically side by side but not speaking, and while Solrin had his eyes set on the car, Sasha cast his companion furtive glances, looking every which way but right.

Nathan knew that look, that scared but not wanting to show it look.

“Something happened,” he said.

“Can’t be too bad if Sasha’s…you know…”

“Not dead ? Come on.” Nathan nudged Jim’s shoulder before climbing out of the car. It was unseasonably warm out for Spring so he was hot even in his lighter jacket. He decided to leave it off, going out to meet Sasha and Solrin in just his T-shirt and jeans.

Solrin was still dressed as he’d been that morning, while Sasha wore a burgundy Henley. Both of them were sweating from being out in the sun. For the life of him, Nathan could not understand why Solrin hadn’t ditched his jacket yet.

“Don’t look so happy to see us or anything!” Nathan called as they got closer.

Sasha cracked a slight smile, still looking troubled, but Solrin didn’t even flinch.

“Sasha relayed that you had found some useful information,” Solrin started right in when they reached each other, not even bothering with pleasantries.

Nathan eyed Sasha and received a fierce look that said ‘we need to talk—alone’.

“Yeah, we learned a lot actually,” Jim said, “just not sure what it all means.”

They filled the others in on what they’d discovered at the morgue, that the first body hadn’t been eaten, only the ones after him, but stopped hearts was a common thread in all, and the animal attack theory the coroner was going on had to be off considering the wounds looked like they had been made by human teeth.

“But the real mystery,” Nathan said, “is the heart attacks. These kids were all about sixteen, so it’s weird for any of them to just croak like that. Wasn’t chemical, so it’s gotta be something supernatural.” He looked from Solrin to Sasha and suddenly saw that the incubus’ eyes had gone wide.

“So we’re thinking,” Jim said, “either we’re at a dead end on what could give its victim a heart attack before eating them, especially since the first victim didn’t have teeth marks, or we’re dealing with two different creatures.

One killing. One eating. That makes our job a little more difficult, but—”

“Now it makes sense,” Solrin interrupted.

“What makes sense?” Nathan asked, only he kind of wished he hadn’t since Sasha was looking about a million times more worried as the conversation continued.

Solrin nodded, mostly to himself, his lone green eye darting around unfocused as he worked something out in his head.

“Yes, makes perfect sense now. You see,” he looked at Nathan squarely, “Sasha and I spoke to the man who tends the cemetery. He was fidgety and unwilling to speak at first. We…convinced him otherwise,” he said with a glance to the side.

“It turns out that someone, or some thing has been digging up graves and desecrating corpses. Eating them. The first victim is among the missing bodies.”

“You mean eating the dead and buried corpses?” Now Nathan might actually be sick. “Dude, that is not okay. I mean not that eating the kids alive or freshly dead is any better, but… dude .”

“Yes, I’m certain now. It is a nachzehrer ,” Solrin said firmly, pronouncing the German with a perfect accent. “I had begun to dismiss it when you mentioned heart attacks, but your theory, Jim, that we may be dealing with two different creatures might mean I am at least half right.”

“Hang on. It’s a what now?” Nathan broke in. “A nach…nach…” Nathan tried to get his throat to do that guttural thing but it just wasn’t working.

“A nachzehrer,” Solrin said again. “They are similar to the zombies seen in cinema in that they are undead and need to feed off of human flesh to sustain themselves. But a nachzehrer only feeds on dead flesh, not the living. I thought perhaps it was killing the victims before eating them, but if they all suffered heart attacks…” He trailed, what they could see of his brow from out of the bandages looking very crinkled.

“At any rate,” he looked up at Nathan again, always focusing eventually on Nathan .

“The first death probably created it. That’s why he wasn’t eaten before he was buried.

The first victim is the nachzehrer now, created by an accidental death related to fae.

The creation of a nachzehrer is a rare occurrence, but the presence of fae is always part of it. ”

“Even if that’s true, and there are two creatures,” Sasha said calmly, though Nathan knew the redhead was anything but calm, “we should focus on the nach right now since it’s our best lead instead of splitting the hunt in two before we know everything.

Besides, finding it first would probably tell us if your theory is correct and whether or not the fae responsible is still around. ”

Nathan decided to go the incubus’ route and just call this thing a nach, said like ‘knock’ without the guttural, which Nathan could totally do.

Solrin nodded in agreement. “Very true. It did not appear that the nachzehrer’s lair was in the cemetery, which is odd.

Usually, they remain with their graves. Our objective should be to track it down.

There isn’t much town to cover.” He began to move as if to go to the car and begin searching right on the spot.

“Whoa, hang on there, Speedy, we’re just about dead weight over here,” Nathan said as he grabbed Solrin’s arm to stop him.

“Let’s take a break, huh? The town doesn’t have much of anything, but I saw a diner we could grab some lunch at.

That way we can regroup, get you and Sasha out of the sun a bit, and decide how best to split up looking through town. Okay?”

It took Nathan a moment to realize that touching Solrin probably wasn’t the best idea. He caught on about the time that green eye went slowly to where his hand was gripping Solrin’s arm and then moved even slower up to catch Nathan’s gaze with a warning.

Nathan pulled away so fast a passerby would have thought Solrin burned him.

“Sorry,” he said quickly, “I’m just a physical kinda guy.

Ask anybody. So, uhh…lunch?” he asked again.

He was starved, for one, and he really didn’t want to get right back into the thick of things until he found out what was bothering Sasha.

“It would be good to weigh our options before we move on,” Jim came to Nathan’s aid. “We might still want to visit with the families, see what all these boys had in common in case we need to watch out for the next victim.”

After a moment, Solrin finally sighed and gave the others an affirming nod. “I suppose I could…eat.”

“Here,” Nathan said, fishing out the car keys, “why don’t you put that jacket in the trunk so you don’t boil up out here, huh?

You can just throw it anywhere.” He tried to pass the keys to Solrin, who stared at them like he had never used a set of keys in his life, which obviously wasn’t true since Nathan had seen the guy’s motorcycle parked outside the Gatehouse.

“Figured you’d prefer doing it yourself so I don’t, ya know,” Nathan grinned, “touch your things anymore.”

The miraculous thing was that Solrin’s mouth actually twitched like he almost wanted to smirk back. He took the keys.

The second he was at the car and safely out of earshot, Nathan gave his incubus a pleading look for an explanation.

“He was…politely unnerving the whole time,” Sasha said, “with the caretaker of the cemetery too. He didn’t do anything.”

“Then what crawled up your ass?” Nathan hissed as quietly as he could.

When Sasha looked to Jim as if the other Grier had to already know, Jim’s dark blue eyes widened much like Sasha’s had earlier.

“You sense it too,” Jim gasped. “I wondered if that’s what it was. Shit . Deaths that look like heart attacks.” He shook his head.

Since Nathan hadn’t quite caught on to their secret conversation, and since he heard the car’s trunk slam to indicate their time was up, he very intently asked, “Sense what? What is it?”

Sasha looked back at him gravely. “An incubus. The second creature is an incubus.”