Page 44 of Sidhe (The Incubus Saga #3)

The screams of the nachzehrer made it painfully easy to follow toward the fight. Nathan turned corner after corner, trying to find the best way to the sounds.

“Jim!” he cried as he finally spotted the door they had to be behind, kicking at it viciously. The door flew open, revealing a large empty lounge with several other doors leading into it and the clear, sobering sight of Jim, Solrin, and one ugly-ass zombie kid facing off against them.

“Nathan!” Jim looked over at him, startled, and obviously fearful once he realized Nathan was alone. It looked as though Jim and Solrin had lost their stakes and were in desperate need of the extras around Nathan’s shoulder.

“He’s strong!” Solrin cried as the nach turned its milky eyes on Nathan.

The kid actually looked a lot like the pictures Nathan had seen of Jared Logan, only not very well-preserved. This was movie zombie, and damn was it ugly. The kid’s skin was sickly, shriveling on his bones. He was as torn up, bloody, and dirty as the incubus in the cellar. The incubus…

Sasha.

Fuck .

Nathan couldn’t afford to be distracted. Not when the nach turned its sights on him.

Readying a stake of his own, Nathan tossed the bag of extra stakes over the nach’s head toward Jim, who caught it easily, then took up his knife in his other hand. One clear shot was all Nathan needed.

He rolled as the zombie lunged for him, kicking out with his legs to unbalance the creature and knock it to the floor. It worked, the nach landing on its back with a solid thud. Nathan immediately scrambled up to position himself to stake the thing…only to discover there wasn’t anything there.

“Nathan!”

A sharp pain exploded in Nathan’s back as something struck him, and he went down face-first into the old wooden floorboards. This zombie wasn’t just strong; it was freaking fast .

Pained as he was, Nathan rolled again, but the nach was practically on top of him in seconds. He did the only thing he could without enough leverage to stake the creature—he lashed out with his knife.

Almost immediately, a hand from forearm to fingertip fell onto Nathan’s chest in a decaying lump of dead flesh.

“Fuck!” Nathan tried to scramble out from under the nach, and to escape that nasty severed hand, as the zombie began screaming loud and piercing again, looking furiously at his missing limb.

Nathan jumped to his feet, shaking off until the offending appendage fell back to the floor.

“Grab his legs!” Solrin called as he and Jim rushed it, trying to get the better of the nach while it was finally distracted long enough to catch.

Jim descended on the nach’s legs, and Solrin grabbed for its arms, getting a little too close to where the hand had been chopped off as far as Nathan was concerned. He grimaced.

“ Nathan. ” Solrin looked up at him sharply.

While Nathan rushed back over to them, Solrin tried to get at one of the vials of holy water, successful only in that it fell out of his pocket onto the nach’s chest. The vial’s cap must not have been secured because it began to leak, sizzling through the remains of a T-shirt onto dead skin and making the nach scream even louder.

With his stake at the ready, Nathan dropped down beside the others. One thing about rotting flesh compared to the living was that pounding in a stake took a lot less effort—smooth like gross, gooey butter.

“Mine!” keened the nach, struggling up against Jim and Solrin’s hold, his voice doubled and echoing like a banshee, so damn shrill that it stung Nathan’s ears. “Mine!” He looked at Nathan in challenge, like he knew, like he knew Nathan had been to see the incubus. “He’s—!”

One good stab with the stake silenced the creature instantly.

Nathan had no remorse for it either, not for something that was already dead.

“No more meals for you, pal,” he grit out, thinking of the incubus, of Sasha , of all those other boys that had died because some damn zombie wouldn’t stay fucking dead .

None of it had been the incubus’ fault, but Nathan doubted he would still be able to think that way if Sasha ended up the next victim.

The nachzehrer keened once more, deafening for a moment and then gone as its strength and struggling died away.

It was already rotting, so it didn’t fall to further decay when it died, just lied there still, a slab of dead meat left in the center of the room with three young men hovering around it.

It took Nathan a few moments to realize he was shaking.

Solrin looked at him curiously, noticing the trembles.

“Fucking hate zombies,” Nathan said as explanation. He looked down the nach’s body to Jim, eyes pleading and distraught in ways he couldn’t risk Solrin seeing.

“Where is Sasha?” Solrin had to ask right then, making Nathan’s chest tighten.

“We…split up. I heard the nach screaming, but…Sasha must still be looking over the house.”

“Good,” Solrin seemed satisfied with that, “there could still be another creature. We should catch up with him.”

The three of them stood.

“I’m sure Sasha’s fine, but we better find him,” Jim said. “Whether there’s another creature or not, this place isn’t exactly safe with so much structural decay. Let’s go.”

They left the nach’s body to rot and headed back to the main entrance.

Nathan tried to lead them the long way through the other side of the house, saving the cellar for last in case Sasha needed more time, but if it came down to it and they reached the cellar door, Nathan would risk Solrin finding out the truth, risk anything if only to check and make sure Sasha was still breathing.

“Perhaps we should call him?” Solrin suggested. “Aren’t you worried something has happened?”

Nathan keenly picked up on the sound of suspicion in Solrin’s tone.

“Sure, and then if he’s trying to make a sneak attack on this ‘other creature’ you’re so sure about, we’d totally blow it for him.

” He mustered up an incredulous smirk. “We’re almost through the house. Gotta be around here somewhere.”

The kitchen was the last main room before the hallway with the cellar door. They reached it and Nathan’s fists clenched as he made his way across the ruined linoleum.

There was shuffling, movement from beyond the kitchen. Nathan froze, waiting, so damn hopeful that he just about stopped breathing when a leather sleeve suddenly reached for the doorframe in front of him to steady a very weary, redheaded incubus.

“Sasha!” Nathan rushed to him, forgetting that he was supposed to be calm and unruffled.

“You’re okay! Fucking Christ , how the Hell are you okay?

” He checked Sasha over feverishly, running his hands along Sasha’s perfect, unmarred face and further down his equally perfect body.

‘Perfect’ because his clothes weren’t shredded or even all that dirty, which was impossible because it not only meant that he had survived the ordeal but that he had been able to hold his glamours, coming out the other end as if nothing happened.

Of course with how Sasha slumped forward exhaustedly into Nathan, it obviously hadn’t been easy .

“Don’t be…so dramatic, Nate,” Sasha slurred into Nathan’s shoulder, forcing Nathan to hold up most of his weight. Jim and Solrin rushed over to help as well. “Bet you were…trying to act all cool too, like you weren’t worried.” Sasha rolled his head so he could smile up at Nathan wearily.

“What happened to you?” Solrin asked, helping to hold Sasha up like he had the other night. Jim stepped back then, Solrin having beaten him to the punch and knowing that there was no way Nathan would give up his half of the incubus.

“I guess…that bug I had…isn’t totally out of my system,” Sasha said, and maybe because he was halfway to passing out, his lie was thoroughly convincing.

“Such an idiot. Hit me like a punch to the gut. Stumbled down into the…cellar and…knocked myself out.” Sasha reached up to the back of his head and pulled back a slightly bloodied hand.

Nathan looked at the wound as best he could through Sasha’s too red hair. It was just a cut, a bad bump too, but at least it helped Sasha’s story sound more plausible.

Of course Nathan couldn’t help envisioning what might have actually caused that wound as a flash of Sasha being fucked hard against the cellar wall ripped through his brain—Sasha’s back arching, claws clinging to the younger incubus that was frenzied and rutting into him, and then with a growl Sasha’s head flew back, cracking hard against the cement and…

Fuck . Nathan really didn’t need to think about that.

“You didn’t find another creature?” Solrin asked, his brow tightly knit.

Sasha shook his head. “Nothing here,” he said, casting Nathan a quick, pointed glance that Nathan hoped meant the incubus kid had high-tailed it. “Does that mean you got the nach? Damn it. Lotta help…I was.”

Nathan couldn’t help thinking that sometimes Sasha was too good at the acting game. He shifted the incubus against him. “You know…I really wish you would have told me if you still weren’t feeling well,” he said, meaning, you bastard, how dare you make that decision without me.

“I know,” Sasha looked at him, all honest remorse for what he had put Nathan through, “I’m sorry, Nate. I hate to worry you.” I had to do it, you know I had to do it.

“Yeah…” Nathan sighed, because he did know, but that didn’t help.

“We should get out of here,” Jim said. “This place is falling apart and we’re all soaked and dirty. Guess the second creature left a while ago.” He shrugged as believably as he could.

“It seems you are right. There is nothing else here,” Solrin said in defeat. “I may have misjudged you,” he added as they began to lead Sasha from the house. “I was…expecting a different outcome. My mistake. Hunting together was…” his lips gave a small twitch as he looked at Nathan, “fun.”

Helpless laughter poured from Nathan’s lips, because damn , that had been anything but fun.