Page 43 of Incubus
Nathan swallowed. Weird Sisters were bad enough. They were always triplets, identical dark or light sidhe gifted with the Power of Three, and often used as enforcers for whichever court they served. But sidhe of the dark court weren't supposed to be able to leave the Veil unless they were summoned by a powerful spell, the way Nathan had summoned the Messenger.
“The one who touched me said…she said they came here on their own,” Nathan lied, avoiding looking at Walter for fear of giving himself away in front of Sasha.
“That’s not possible,” Jim said. “Dark sidhe haven't been able to leave the Veil on their own for thousands of years, not since they lost the war to the light side.”
“You’re sure that’s what she said?” Sasha asked. “Maybe she was lying.”
Nathan glanced at Walter before replying, and then looked to Jim, saying as much as he could with his eyes that Walter was the messenger and certain of what he was saying. “She wasn’t lying.”
“If that’s really true then something bigger than just us is going on here,” Sasha said. “But you might be right. I think I know which Weird Sisters we’re dealing with: the Muses. That’s why it seemed like a nymph was causing everything.” He leaned back against the wall beside the window and peered out of the curtain at the street below. “The Muses are Weird Sisters that personify the basest of earthly excess. Want of material things, Desire of the flesh, and Violence. They're lower ranking dark sidhe, but still some of the oldest Weird Sisters I know of. I don’t think thereisa way to summon them.”
“When they had me surrounded…Violence must have been the one that touched me,” Nathan said. “She had her hands on me before I could do anything and I just…” he trailed, shuddering at the remaining ache left by that power.
“You couldn’t have avoided it,” Jim said. “We’re no match for Weird Sisters, especially if they found a way out of the Veil. The point of all this is to find dark fae we can muscle info out of, not hand you right to them.”
“But we can’t just leave,” Nathan shot back. “I don’t think these Muses have any plans to move on. They’ll stay in Crofton until they got the whole town turned against each other and everyone’s dead.”
Silence drifted between them as the brothers looked at each other and at Sasha and agreed that they were not about to cut and run.
“Okay,” Sasha said. “We need to make the next move if we can. Chasing after them now would only get us killed. I vote we stay in tonight, all in this one room with a lookout at all times. If they don’t come for us first, then tomorrow…we’ll see what we can do in the daylight.”
Nathanvolunteeredtokeeplookout first while Jim and Sasha slept. Walter had disappeared again, since he was still flickering occasionally after coming into such close contact with powerful sidhe.
Staring at the still streets and mostly empty parking lot outside, Nathan’s eyes grew heavy. There had been no signs that the Muses were planning an attack, but he fought to stay awake and keep a constant vigil. They hadn’t had time to consider the larger implications of the Muses being thereunsummoned, which shouldn't have been possible. The thought of that changing, of dark sidhe being able to cross over from the Veil whenever they wanted, made Nathan shudder.
Halfway into his turn on watch, Nathan glanced at the bed that would have been his and saw that Sasha was stirring. The incubus soon sat up, blinking awake.
“Can’t sleep,” Sasha mouthed, half-dressed but still wearing his jeans that like all of his pants hung low when he stood so that his tattoo peeked over the waistband. “Want some company?” he asked once he had made his way across the room.
Nathan was slumped heavily in a chair beside the window. He gestured to the remaining chair by the small table that Sasha then took and slid into place beside him.
For a few minutes they sat in silence. Sasha didn’t make any small talk, and Nathan didn’t feel the need to fill the quiet. He actually found himself enjoying the company for company’s sake, which was a rare thing, though he was still relieved to have the silence broken when Sasha spoke.
“I keep meaning to ask you,” Sasha said, his voice kept low for Jim’s sake. “Your necklace. I never see you without it. Must be something special, huh?”
Nathan stared down at the chain around his neck with his father’s ring hidden beneath his shirt. He tugged at it to reveal what Sasha had probably assumed would be a pendant but was actually a Celtic designed band of white gold.
“It was our dad’s,” he said when Sasha’s eyes grew wide. “Never really understood why Mom gave it to me instead of Jim. She was…having it cleaned for Dad the day he…” Nathan couldn’t quite say it, but he smiled somberly, knowing Sasha would understand.
“I’m sorry. I’m sure it was very different for you than it was for me,” Sasha said, smiling back at Nathan in the dark as they both leaned against the window and passed occasional glancesoutside to keep watch. “I was sixteen when I went out on my own. You and Jim have been taking care of each other for longer than that from what I’ve heard.”
Nathan frowned. “Don’t know what I think about all this seal gossip about me and my brother circulating out there, though I guess I shouldn’t be surprised with how much we’ve been hunted over the years. Sure, it was rough,” he said, “but to tell you the truth, I’m glad I know the things I know. I don’t want to think what it would be like to be a civilian in this mess.”
Sasha nodded, and curved his back in a stretch, proving how tired he was despite not being able to sleep. “Guess we have a lot in common.”
“How do you mean?”
“Like how we grew up. How we survived on our own. And…” Sasha’s head tilted toward Nathan with a flick of a sad smile. “Both our parents were killed by seals.”
There was something almost dark in the way Sasha said that, darker than Nathan thought even he sounded when remembering his parents’ deaths. He had at least known them, been old enough to remember them, the way they looked, the way they loved him and his brother.
It had to be so much harder for Sasha.
“You were…still in diapers when they died?” Nathan asked.
“Three months old, I think,” Sasha said.
“And the seal that did it was a friend of your dad’s?”
