Page 55 of Sidhe
“Kid…” Nathan repeated, since they kept throwing that pronoun around. “So we’re assuming the incubus is newly out of the change, same age as the victims, like…sixteen, seventeen?”
“Eighteen at the most,” Sasha said.
“Could we maybe get a hunt at some point that doesn’t involve teenagers, coz I’m sort of getting sick of this scenario.” Nathan tried to pass the comment off as a joke, but it fell flat, especially when he thought of what might have happened to Leven.
Jim, too, was purely sympathetic as he said, “Sasha, I agree with you that this kid probably doesn’t mean to hurt anyone, but this is four deaths later, not just one, or even two because he freaked for a while and made another mistake. Maybe it’s more than just panic now. Maybe he’s…no longer in his right mind.” Jim tried to sound appeasing, explaining himself as gently as he could, but it wasn’t surprising to Nathan that Sasha immediately rose up to the defensive.
“You don’t know what it’slike,” Sasha hissed, his eyes damp and sparkling unnaturally blue. “I’ve been there. I’ve done what he did. And not frenzied or possessed,” he said pointedly, “but wholly in my right mind. Tell me when you haveeverexperienced something like that?” Sasha’s voice broke even though he was seething at Jim, trying to stay angry instead of shattered.
“Sasha…” Nathan started to interject.
“Don’t,” Sasha breathed out bitterly, “and please don’t tell me how youdounderstand because of the things you did in—” He trailed, more like bit his tongue since he had obviously been about to say ‘the Veil’, but even then Nathan wouldn’t have gotten angry at him over it.
The incubus already looked guilty for having reacted so strongly. He glanced at each of the brothers remorsefully. “I’m sorry, but…even though you can tell me that what I did was an accident, and that this kid is different because he’s moved onto something worse, you don’t know. I could have ended up just like him. I was halfway there when Shi found me.”
Sasha looked stricken for having let that slip, but now that he had said it, he sucked in a breath and didn’t take it back.
“After that girl,” he said softly, “I did exactly what this kid is doing now. I hid away. Didn’t eat, or drink, ormovefor almost a month. Shi found me two days from frenzy. If she hadn’t…” He didn’t need to say that he would have fallen to the same cycle as this boy, and it made Nathan feel suddenly sick. For so long he had been able to forget that somewhere deep down Sasha had just as much self-loathing in him as they did.
“Okay,” Nathan said, looking pointedly at Jim a moment to tell his brother that he damn well better go along with this. “Good thing Solrin should be sticking to the cemetery for a while then. If this kid is outside the city limits somewhere, maybe you two can find him while I keep Solrin busy looking for the nach. You find him…maybe you can talk him down, baby, without Solrin ever knowing what the second creature was.” Nathan didn’t know if that was a good idea, but it certainly felt right when Sasha looked up at him with a pained but grateful smile.
Jim didn’t protest, just smiled in agreement and offered Sasha a nod to show his support. If they were wrong, they could handle one little incubus. The real hard part would be keeping Solrin away while Jim and Sasha looked for it.
Nathan could handle that.
Chapter 20
Talkingtothefamilieswent smoother than expected, but they didn’t find out anything new. There weren’t many other teenager boys around, not in the city limits anyway, so it was possible that the next victim would be taken from one of the neighboring towns. That would suck a little more than they wanted to admit if they didn’t find the incubus before he frenzied again.
Nathan asked Jim if he could just summon the kid—he was a full blown Awakened changeling now, after all—but the kid’s signal was too faint, probably because he was starving himself, and Jim couldn’t get a clear enough lock. They would have to search the old fashioned way and hope that when they got closer, either Jim or Sasha or both would be able to sense him more clearly.
It was late afternoon when Nathan pulled the car up to the cemetery and parked. Solrin had said he was still there when Nathan texted him from Sasha’s phone. Well, Solrin had textedback ‘cemetery’ without further elaboration, so Nathan assumed that’s what he meant.
He couldn’t see any sign of the white-haired seal though, or any caretaker. Nathan decided to check out the many mausoleums first, since they were most likely where Solrin would look for the nach’s lair, though he did pause to wonder why it was always the small towns that had creepy-ass burial grounds.
“Hey, Sol!” Nathan called inside one of them, and then thought better about that considering the nach might actually be here somewhere. He found nothing and went to the next one.
He took about two steps inside the second mausoleum before he was slammed back into the stone wall with a knife to his throat.
“It’s me!” Nathan cried as the distinctive figure of white and grey focused in front of his eyes. “I come in peace, I swear!” he added since the seal stared at him like he almost wasn’t sure who Nathan was.
Then Solrin stepped back, releasing Nathan and slipping his knife back into a rather well-concealed sheath inside one of his cargo pockets. “My apologies. I didn’t hear you. I tend to…act first,” he said with a jerk of his shoulders that might have been a shrug.
No really, Nathan wanted to say as he coughed up dust and lack of air from having the wind knocked out of him. But in the end he couldn’t begrudge the guy an itchy trigger finger. “Forget about it. No broken ribs,” he said, feeling where he would probably have a couple bruises on his back tomorrow. “Just a broken ego. So,” he stepped away from the wall and gestured around him, “please tell me you didn’t spend all afternoon in these things.”
Moving further into the mausoleum, which didn’t look all that different from the first one Nathan had entered, Solrin gave apassing glance over the walls, ceiling, and floor. “I don’t see a problem with that,” he said plainly, “the cemetery is still the most likely place for a nachzehrer to dwell. I was looking for potential hiding places within these crypts, but…nothing so far.” He turned back to Nathan, his posture very stiff and straight for someone who bowed his head so often when he spoke.
“Well, no offence,” Nathan eyed the dusty building again, “but I don’t think this town is quite the type to have crypts with secret passageways. What you see is what you get. If the nach’s not here, maybe he went to an abandoned building or something instead. Did you talk to the caretaker again?”
Solrin frowned. “He was gone. But I remembered he said that he hadn’t noticed a missing or disrupted body for some time. The nachzehrer may have moved on, or, since they do not need to eat as often as a normal human, perhaps he merely waits for the other creature to make its next kill.”
“Glad to hear he’s not chowing down on corpses every night,” Nathan said, avoiding the subject of the other creature for now. “Of course, if he was, then a good old cemetery sit-in tonight probably would have solved the case.”
“Yes,” Solrin said in disappointment. “I suppose we can move on then. Where would you prefer to search next?” He stepped up close to Nathan, regarding him with that lone green eye piecing and direct, like he didn’t understand that sudden eye contact was unnerving.
“Uhh…well,” Nathan looked away, trying to think how best to get through this without messing things up for Jim and Sasha, or that incubus, “we should stay on this side of town since Jim and Sasha have the rest covered. We could grid it out, check every abandoned house and building systematically. Might take a while but it’d be the most efficient. You think the nach would stay close by the cemetery in case he needed a quick meal?” Helooked back at Solrin who had yet to turn his gaze away from staring at Nathan’s face.
The white-haired seal retained that gaze as he answered, “Possibly. And your plan is sound. It is…nice…to have the assistance.”
