Page 24 of Incubus
Nathan looked to Walter. The show of pity on the Spirit Guide's face seemed just as much for Nathan’s sake as it was for the dying incubus on the floor.
"Nate,please," Jim said.
Nathan closed his eyes, the shotgun slipping from his fingers finally to clatter to the floor. When he opened them again, he dropped to his knees beside his brother. Grabbing hold of Sasha's face, Nathan forced those nearly lifeless blue eyes to look at him. "Tell me what to do," he said.
Sasha wasn’t shaking anymore. He blinked at Nathan several times before his vision cleared. “You’re…helping me?"
“Yes,” Jim said, with a big smile thrown first at Nathan, and all his sincerity pouring out of those damn puppy eyes.
“I can be wrong,” Nathan said, unable to deny the wave of pity he felt for Sasha. “It’s been known to happen. But we have to hurry or there won’t be much of you left to save."
Nathan looked around the dark apartment, having absolutely no idea what they could use to flush the iron from Sasha’s system. It wasn’t as if they could take him to the nearest hospital to have his stomach pumped.
Then Nathan wondered. “Hey, Sasha,” he said, shaking Sasha’s shoulders since those bloodshot blue eyes had started toclose. “Hey. Do you keep some kind of, I don’t know, antidote or something? I mean, if you’re really a seal, iron is part of the life.”
Sasha’s head lolled from side to side. “My…pocket,” he said.
Nathan checked Sasha's jacket first, finding the pheromone detector, and then, on the other side, a small vial of green liquid. Sasha nodded when Nathan held the vial close to his face.
“Do we just pour it on the wound?” Jim asked.
Nathan had to shake Sasha again to get him to answer. “First…on the wound…and then…then...” Sasha cringed. His eyes closed tight against another wave of pain, and he shook with a convulsion that finally left him still.
“Sasha?” Nathan prompted. “Hey!” But no amount of shaking was enough to rouse him this time.
Nathan quickly unscrewed the top of the vial and poured half of it onto Sasha's wound. It fizzled like acid, but instead of eating the skin, it indeed healed it, at least the wound and immediate presence of blue veins. But it did not spread far. The poison was too imbedded. There wasn’t time to consider a thousand possibilities that might waste what little antidote they had, so Nathan took the rest of the liquid and poured it down Sasha’s throat.
“Nathan!” Jim called out. But foolish or not, they soon saw that Nathan was right.
The antidote spread unnaturally fast through Sasha's bloodstream, giving his skin an eerie green glow. It was like a chemical reaction, shooting green fire through all of those blue veins and forcing Sasha’s body to arch away from the wall. His eyes sprang open, flashing a vibrant red with slit pupils like a cat. Like adark fae.
Nathan flinched at the sight of them. He knew he had seen Sasha’s true eyes then, but just as quickly, brilliant blue returned. So, too, returned Sasha’s normal, unmarred skin and even breathing.
"Good...guess," Sasha gasped, still clearly fatigued, but able to stand when they helped him up.
Jim was brimming with relief and gratitude. Walter looked practically proud. But there wasn’t time for Nathan to dwell on whether or not he had made the right decision. Considering the unfortunately dead girl in the bedroom, the most they could do was leave an anonymous tip for the police and get out of the apartment as quickly as possible.
“So,Itakeitthis pheromone detector thing is bogus?” Nathan said, picking up Sasha’s scanner and turning it over in his hands.
They were sitting at the small table in Nathan and Jim’s motel room. A few items of Sasha’s were scattered in front of them, including the scanner and a few photographs.
Sasha took the scanner back from Nathan. He appeared healthy despite his recent brush with death, but there was a weariness clinging to him. “I did set it up to scan for some fae pheromones," he said, "just not for my kind. I can sense those myself.”
Nathan held back a frown. Dismissing that Sasha was a seal had been easy, because a seal that meant them harm wouldn’t play games. A normal seal would have killed them on the spot. Fae were different.
Jim was staring at the photographs on the table, which pulled Nathan’s attention to them as well. There were two of Sasha’s parents, one from when his father was still human and another after he had been changed into an incubus. “I can’t believe it’s the same man,” Jim said, passing his gaze back and forthbetween the photos. “I mean, in the first one he has to be in his forties.”
“Forty-six, actually,” Sasha said.
Nathan pulled the second photograph closer to him to study it. Sasha had said that the time between photographs was mere months but, as an incubus, Sasha’s father looked twenty years younger. “I didn’t realize becoming an incubus was a fountain of youth,” Nathan said. “Of course…I didn’t know a person couldbecomeone at all.”
“We’re the only fae who can initiate humans,” Sasha said. “Other fae can only make Shadow Immortals. If you’re born an incubus, you age like a normal human until adulthood. If you’re initiated as one and already older, you return to that age.”
Nathan nodded vaguely, staring at the pictures. He was both amazed and troubled at the thought of someone being turned into an actual fae. The grey in Sasha’s father’s hair was gone in the second photograph, his face clean-shaven and unlined, and his eyes glowed vibrantly.
Now Nathan understood why Sasha’s eyes had seemed so similar to Walter’s when they first met. The eyes were a glamour, a projection. Nathan had seen Sasha’s real eyes, and they were as red as his hair. And as slit as any dark fae.
“I see you weren’t lying about your natural coloring,” Nathan said, turning his attention to the succubus in the photographs. Sasha’s mother had the same impossibly red hair as her son.
