Page 106 of Incubus
The silence that followed Nathan’s outburst was painfully still. Nathan felt like he was back to being ten years old, having a staring contest with his brother. Shiarra was clearly not the type of woman to usually back down. But she also seemed to respect that enough in others to decide Nathan wasn’t worthy of being dismembered.
“You must be Nathan,” she said, and crossed slender arms over her more than ample chest.
“Nice to meet you,” Nathan replied with extra sarcasm. “Now, are you going tell us how we can get Sasha back, or do you need to touch up your makeup first?”
Jim moved in quickly to join Nathan beside the bed. “What hemeans...is we’ll do whatever it takes to help Sasha, so please, tell us there is something we can do. We’ve already told you everything that happened over the phone. It wasn’t pure iron—”
“It was an alloy,” Shiarra finished. She started fishing in the purse that was thrown over her shoulder. “If that is the case then your quick work with the antidote probably saved my boy’s life. To flush the rest of the iron out of his system and wake him…we’ll need this.” She pulled a vial from her purse not unlike the ones Sasha carried. “I'll also need a little something from both of you.”
Nathan stared at the vial. At first it looked identical to the ones with the antidote, but then Nathan noticed strange spirals of red mixed in with the green.
“Not that I don’t trust your other friend,” Shiarra said, nodding toward the door to indicate Schuester, “but I only need two more candidates. My own blood has already been added.” She started moving around the bed toward them and they both instinctually backed away.
“Whoa, whoa,” Nathan said, enjoying the fact that he currently had Jim as a human shield. “What’s this about blood? What is that stuff? What’s it do?”
Shiarra stopped a mere foot from Jim and propped her free hand on her hip. Nathan couldn’t help but notice how similar her exasperated expression was to Sasha’s. “If you two care about Sasha as much as you say then this ‘stuff’ is what is going to wake him back up again. The most powerful thing to our kind is passion, emotion. This antidote is stronger than the one used for simple wounds. It combines the Power of Three, taking an amplified antidote and mixing it with three drops of blood from three willing participants wholovethe one being cured. Love, boys,” Shiarra repeated with something of a sneer, “so you understand why I am not so thrilled about this. Sasha hasno one but me. So either you’re lying and using him somehow, and in that case the potion will be ineffective…and mean very bad things for you. Or…you really care for my nephew and are therefore the only thing that can help me save him." Her eyes drifted incredulously to Nathan.
Nathan felt both a rush of anger toward Shiarra and a jolt of joy at finally knowing there was a clear way to save Sasha and that it would work, of course it would work, because Nathan and Jim had grown to care for Sasha very much. Surely, that translated easily into love between friends.
At the veryleastfriends.
Perhaps it was Nathan and Jim's twin looks of determination as they walked toward her that made Shiarra’s expression soften. She was still a little vicious when she snatched up Jim’s hand and pricked his finger with her suddenly transformed succubus claws. Jim hissed but didn’t pull away, allowing Shiarra to hold his finger over the now open vial and squeeze three drops of blood.
At his turn, Nathan reached down to grab for his ankle blade and cut his own finger. Shiarra huffed at him, more than a bit snobbish as far as Nathan was concerned, and was perhaps a bit less gentle with Nathan when she squeezed the blood from him.
Everything else about the new, more powerful antidote worked the same. First Shiarra poured it over the wound, where it sizzled the way it had the first time, softening the scar a bit though not getting rid of it completely, and then she poured what remained down Sasha’s throat and green light shot through his body beneath the skin.
Nathan waited for that glorious moment when Sasha’s eyes would spring wide, flashing brilliant red, but it didn’t happen. Sasha still didn’t move and, for a moment, Nathan felt a wave of panic.
As the succubus turned away from Sasha, her expression was not one of anger, however, but somewhere between fondness and exhaustion. “Now we wait. This isn’t a quick a fix. It will take time to banish every bit of iron, and only then will he wake again. The longest it could possibly take would be twenty-four hours, but considering how quickly you initially healed him, it might only be a few hours before the potion has finished. If after a day he does not wake up,” she added, returning the empty vial to her purse and walking once again over to where Jim and Nathan were standing, “you won’t live to see the day that follows. That, I should think, should be very clear.”
“Crystal,” Nathan grumbled.
“So...youhaveaplacein Seattle?”
Nathan could kill Jim for attempting small talk. He preferred the previous several hours of awkward silence.
Schuester had put on a pot of coffee, Nathan and Jim both managing to function on pure will alone as they waited into the night. The four of them along with Kitty were seated in the living room.
Shiarra had become somewhat more courteous, at least to Schuester, who she had heard Sasha talk of fondly for much longer than Nathan or Jim. She also seemed especially softened when speaking to Kitty, referring to her as 'dear girl' every time she spoke to her.
“I keep a residence there, yes,” Shiarra said, sipping her coffee. She was like one of those rich characters on primetime soap operas, all perfect crossed legs and delicate movements, despite the brute strength she had to possess after who knows how many years alive. “I prefer Seattle if I’m going to stay somewherelonger than a few days. It would be nice to have Sasha visit once in a while, instead of him gallivanting around the country."
Nathan grimaced, picking up easily on her passive-aggressive tone. “You want to go blaming that on us too? Look, I'm sorry for what happened with your sister. Really. And for Sasha being banished. But we’ve never talked him into anything. We just asked for his help and he agreed. He makes his own choices. You can’t blame a seal for getting in a little deep now and again, but we’ve always managed to come back from it. Even this time.”
“We’ll see about that,” Shiarra said.
"Are you an angel too?" Kitty asked suddenly.
Shiarra's smile turned instantly more genuine as she turned to the little girl. "Angel? Why, dear girl, I'm afraid it's not quite as romantic as all that. Or...perhapsmoreromantic, in a way."
"Daddy said Sasha is an incubus," Kitty said.
"Quite right," Shiarra answered. "And in that case, yes, I am the same. I'm sure you have heard many frightening stories about cruel and evil fae, but we are far from it. I'm impressed you are still so taken with Sasha after seeing his true form. You must be a very special girl."
Kitty beamed.
Even though Nathan knew he would be chided by Jim for it later, he couldn't help commenting on Shiarra's gentle treatment of the girl. “You know, you’re about as big a hypocrite as anyone I’ve met. Kittyisa special girl, I'll make no argument against that, but you could give the rest of us some credit too. Sasha didn’t trust us at first either, but when push came to shove and we found out what he really was, we helped him, kept working with him, becamebetterfriends, even. And Schuester, he’s known the truth about Sasha for years, and you said yourself Sasha’s never had anything but good things to say about him.”
