Page 68 of Incubus
Jim stumbled back, pulling Nathan along with him away from Gabriel. "I...wait. Stop," he said, but his voice wasn't having the same affect.
“Jimmy! Nathan!” Alex burst into the kitchen from behind Gabriel and went straight for his gun, disarming it with practiced ease until the bullets were plinking out onto the floor. "Go!" she said, tossing the emptied gun onto a nearby counter, and buying them what little time she could.
Nathan still felt stiff, moving painfully slow as he hung on tight to his bag and turned toward the door along with his brother. He was thankful when Jim turned some of that unpredictable power back on him.
"Nathan, come on!"
Intentional or not, the influence in Jim’s message had Nathan finally free of the spell. Together they raced to Sasha already at the door. He didn’t seem to have suffered the same immobility, but looked haunted as he stared beyond them at Alex and Gabriel.
Nathan risked a glance back and saw a fierce scowl on Gabriel's face that seemed entirely meant for Sasha.
“Go!” Alex called again.
This time they took off running.
The car seemed too far away, coming from the side entrance instead of the front, but they still had a head start. Walter appeared the moment Nathan was outside the doors, urgently asking him what was wrong and why they were running, but there was no time to answer him.
Sasha made it to the driver’s side door, still being the owner of the keys. It wasn't until after the doors had been unlocked and they were about to climb inside that Nathan started cursing.
“What’s wrong?” Jim asked.
“That bastard slashed the tires!” Nathan shouted.
"He slashedallof the tires," Sasha said, looking around at the few other vehicles nearby. "He knew we were here."
Nathan cursed again, but their only option was to use the car they had. They climbed inside and Sasha soon had the engine revving to life.
"Sasha, go!" Jim cried.
The sudden panic in Jim’s voice had Nathan flinching to look behind them. Gabriel was sprinting out of the Gatehouse toward the car, weaponless, but determined.
Sasha gunned the accelerator, spinning the car in reverse to face the road. The rims of the car would bend quickly if they didn't find another vehicle or change out the tires. Their only hope was that Gabriel wouldn’t be able to get a clear enough trace on where they were headed.
Chapter 26
“There’sagarageinRushville,” Nathan told Sasha as they peeled out onto the road. He hadn’t noticed until then that he and Jim had both gone for the backseat, leaving Sasha as chauffer, unknowingly with Walter in the passenger seat beside him. “We have to change the tires or we’ll be dead in the water.”
Sasha nodded, but was strangely quiet and tense as he clutched white-knuckled on the steering wheel. Not a single sound left him the entire time they drove into town, not while Jim chattered on about Alex’s safety, and Nathan gave a play by play of every car hethoughthe saw sneaking up behind them in the dark.
When they pulled up to the garage, a heavy silence had fallen over all of them. They made quick work of the locks and broke inside without much trouble, thankful that the small town was asleep at this late hour and no one seemed to have noticed them. Nathan had hoped for a drivable car they could steal, but therewas nothing inside the shop other than parts and, thankfully,tires.
Sasha’s incubus strength made it possible to raise the car onto blocks without the aid of any noisy machines, but he still wasn't speaking. Once the car was raised and they could get to work, Sasha disappeared from beside Nathan.
“You really think Alex will be okay?” Jim asked, rolling the first new tire toward Nathan. “He knows she was helping us now.”
“She’ll be fine inside the Gatehouse,” Nathan said. “Alex is the rightful Keeper. He wouldn’t dare hurt her. Plus he broke Gatehouse rules and tried to use a gun inside the walls. She never has to let him in again. We’ll call her once we’re somewhere safe and check in, okay?”
Jim nodded vaguely, lost in thought. Nathan nudged him with his foot as an indication that speed was of the essence here, and Jim got the message, grabbing another tire to help.
“I didn’t mean to freeze you too,” Jim said after a moment. “I did, though, didn’t I? I didn’t even know if it would work, but I thought…if I got the Muses to run back to the Veil, maybe…”
“It’s okay, Jim,” Nathan said. “You did good. It was more annoying than anything.” He smiled for good measure, but Jim still looked far away, like half of him was back at the Gatehouse. “Hey. Don’t you believe that stuff you spouted back there? ‘Cause I do. You’re not like other changelings, Jim. You’re different. You’re going to be different.”
The twitch of a smile pulled at Jim’s lips. “If you say so, Nathan,” he said.
Nathan took that for as much of a win as he was going to get and started to work on the first tire. Jim took another.
There was still no sign of Sasha.
