Page 53 of Sidhe
“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 somethinghas been digging up graves and desecrating corpses.Eatingthem. The first victim is among the missing bodies.”
“You mean eating the dead andburiedcorpses?” 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 anachzehrer,” 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 onNathan. “The first death probably created it. That’s why he wasn’t eaten before he was buried. The first victimisthe 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 butcalm, “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 thefamilies, 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.”
Chapter 19
Atsomepointlifehad to work itself out. Nathan was a firm believer in that. He sort of had to be lately what with him trusting for the first time since he was twelve years old that the universe was not out to get him.
At least he sure hoped he was right about that since this case was heading to Hell in a hand basketreally fucking fast.
