Incubus (The Daughters Of Lilith)

by Jennifer Quintenz

  “Right?” Cassie turned back to Royal. “You see? Edgy.”

  “Please. Braedyn’s got the fashion sense of a timid nun,” Royal said. “No offense,” he added to me as an after thought.

  “Why would I be offended by that?” I asked mildly. Cassie shot me a grin.

  “Okay, folks, class actually started a few minutes ago,” Mr. Harris called. He was a compact man, with a penchant for outlandish bow ties. I liked his class; he had a zest for his subject that was contagious. Cassie, Royal, and I took our seats as Mr. Harris wrote “LAB DAY” in big letters across the chalkboard. “I see we have a few absent students, so I’m going to take this opportunity to mix things up a bit.”

  The class groaned. I glanced around and remembered that Rick and his two soccer buddies were on their mini-suspension. “New lab partners will be as follows.” Mr. Harris started reading off names, but when he called Royal and Rick there was an audible reaction from the class. Royal’s face drained of color as Mr. Harris grabbed his eraser, suddenly realizing his mistake.

  “Nope, sorry.” He glanced up at Royal, his face lined with consternation. “Why don’t you and Cassie partner up? I’ll put Rick with someone else.”

  “Thanks,” Royal said faintly.

  “Braedyn, you’re with Seth. Amber, you’re with Ally.” Mr. Harris looked up. “And I think that’s it.”

  I glanced at Seth, who was staring at me, expressionless.

  “Let’s move this party to the lab,” Mr. Harris said. We filed out of the classroom and headed across the hall to the physics lab for what Mr. Harris called our “plumb-bob experiment.” It involved hanging a weight from a string to make a pendulum, taping a razor to the edge of the desk to cut the string as the weight swung by, and predicting where the weight would land on the floor—all based on the height of the weight at the start of its swing.

  Seth and I worked together, setting up our pendulum almost wordlessly. I started the calculations to predict where the weight would land. Seth glanced around the room, then lowered his voice.

  “You’re Lilitu, aren’t you?”

  I looked up at him sharply, unprepared for this question in the middle of physics lab. Seth read my face and nodded. He looked tense, but not scared.

  “I’m fighting for the Guard,” I said.

  “Yeah, I figured that much out,” Seth replied. “But you and Lucas? In the mission it looked like—I mean, are you guys allowed to...”

  I blushed. “That was a moment of weakness. We know we have to be careful.”

  Seth nodded and fell silent for a moment. I was about to turn back to my calculations, thinking that’s all we were going to say for now, when he turned back to me, eyes alive with curiosity. “So how did this happen? I mean, how did you end up with them?”

  “My dad,” I answered. We kept our heads bent over our experiment and I filled Seth in. I told him about Dad, the great Murphy, a living legend to the Guard. I told him how Dad had been good friends with my biological father, Paul Kells, and how Paul had given his life so I could be born and raised by Murphy to fight for the Guard. When I was done, Seth studied his hands for a moment in silence.

  “That makes sense, I guess,” he said.

  “What about you?” I asked. “How did you end up with the Guard?”

  “My father was killed when I was a baby, too,” he said. “Mom had been an ancient history professor, but losing my father messed her up pretty bad. The police didn’t have any leads, but Mom... something about the crime scene, the marks on his back, the changes in his personality, it all sounded weirdly familiar to her. She dug into some old Mesopotamian research, stuff she hadn’t looked at since her grad school days. And there it all was. Beautiful demons who steal men’s souls, kill with an embrace,” Seth eyed me uncomfortably and shrugged. “She got obsessed with the Lilitu. Quit her job. Became a Guard archivist.”

  “She seems pretty intense,” I offered.

  “Yeah. She’s totally into this mission project. She keeps finding little bits of information she calls ‘clues to the big picture,’ but she won’t tell me what they are.” He shrugged. “She tries to keep me insulated from a lot of this stuff.”

  “So she’s found something?” I asked, suddenly focused on Seth.

  “Well, yeah. That theory she mentioned to the Guard? That’s all she’s been working on for the last month. She thinks she’s onto something huge.”

  “When is she going to tell us what she found?”

  “I don’t know. When she wants to.” Seth smiled a lopsided smile.

  “Could you ask her?”

  “You think I haven’t? What gets really annoying is when I’ll hear her say something like; ‘how do they keep it locked,’ and I ask ‘keep what locked?’ and she tells me to go outside and play. Like I’m 10 years old again.”

  All of a sudden the room seemed to lurch. My heart beat painfully in my chest and I put a hand out to steady myself on the desk. “She said that?” I asked, my voice hoarse with urgency. “She said ‘locked?’”

  “Well, yeah,” Seth said, giving me a curious look. “Why? Does that mean anything to you?”

  I bit my lip, trying to control the sudden hope that flared inside. Locked. Could she mean the seal? Was there a way to keep it closed? Instead of answering his question, I asked, “Can I see your mom’s research?”

  Seth shifted his weight, suddenly uncomfortable. “She wouldn’t really—”

  “She doesn’t have to know,” I breathed in a rush.

  Seth gaped at me. “I—she’s got her papers all organized in piles. She’ll know if we mess with them.”

  “Please,” I said. “This could be really important.”

  Seth didn’t say anything for a long moment. He was avoiding my eyes. “She doesn’t like strangers in our house.” I felt a wave of disappointment crash over me, but it vanished in the next moment. “So we’ll have to sneak over at lunch. She’s on a research trip to the library in Santa Fe. She won’t be back until this afternoon.” Seth caught my eye, gaining courage with every word. “If we’re going to do this, we should do it today.”

  After fourth period, I spotted Lucas on the way into lunch. I grabbed his hand and pulled him out of line. His shoulders tensed, suddenly alert.

  “What is it?”

  “We need to take a little field trip,” I said.

  Lucas followed me to the parking lot, glancing at me with surprise when he saw Seth waiting by my car.

  “I’ll explain on the way,” I said.

  10 minutes later, Lucas was caught up. I didn’t have to mention the seal—Lucas gave me a look that told me he knew exactly what I was thinking. We pulled up outside the little cement-block house Seth and his mom had rented for their stay in Puerto Escondido. It had a salmon-colored stucco face, with sun-faded roof tiles. Seth led the way to the front door, through a small, gated courtyard.

  Seth turned to us, suddenly hesitant. “Let me look around first,” he said. “Just to make sure she’s not here.”

  I nodded, and Lucas and I crouched down out of view of the front windows.

  Seth disappeared into the house, and reappeared a few minutes later. “Coast is clear.”

  We slipped into the house and Seth pulled the door closed behind us.

  The inside of the house was dated but comfortable. Deep brown tiles stretched from the foyer into the living room.

  “The office is this way,” Seth whispered, clearly nervous. Lucas gave me a smile as we followed Seth down the hall. He opened a door and stepped back.

  A desk sat in the center of the room, surrounded by islands of paper stacked all over the floor. The bookshelf pushed up against the back wall sagged under the weight of a mountain of books.

  “Whoa,” Lucas said, taking it all in.

  “Just watch out for the piles,” Seth said, hovering nervously in the doorway. “I have no idea how she organizes this stuff.”

  “So,” I was at a loss for where to look. “Where should we start?�
�

  Seth seemed to understand the question I wasn’t asking. “She records her theories in her diary,” he said, walking quickly into the room. He stepped nimbly around stacks of papers to the back of the desk. “It should be over here somewhere,” he said.

  Lucas and I walked into the room, moving cautiously to avoid the paper land mines surrounding us. Books and papers weren’t the only things in this room, I saw. Mingled among the research were artifacts, some extremely old judging by their patinas.

  “That’s Mesopotamian,” Lucas said, pointing to a small statue of two figures wrapped in a pair of bat-like wings.

  “You know your art history,” Seth said, rustling papers on the desk. “Mom picked up a bunch of Mesopotamian artifacts over the years. Some of this stuff is from the Guard Library, on loan. Come to think of it,” he blinked, looking up at the room around him. “Now that the Library is gone, this might be the biggest collection of Lilitu artifacts in existence.”

  Lucas and I exchanged an uneasy glance.

  Seth saw the look and smiled sadly. “You guys are lucky,” he murmured. “Having each other. I’ve never really had a friend I could trust like this before. Mom’s kept us moving around. Even if we were in one place long enough for me to make friends, she didn’t want me hanging out with anyone my own age.”

  “Sounds familiar,” Lucas said. Seth met his gaze and they shared a look of understanding.

  Seth moved another stack of papers and revealed a worn, leather-bound journal. “This is it,” he said.

  I moved closer, eager to discover Angela’s theories. Seth handed the journal to me and I opened it on the desk. I started scanning Angela’s notes. A few minutes later, I pulled the desk chair back so I could sit down. We’d found the mother lode.

  I read and read and read, flipping through Angela’s journal. She had stumbled onto several disjointed pieces of information that—taken together—seemed to lay out the monks’ grand plan. As I read, I’d pause to share the most telling bits of research to the guys.

  “She thinks the monks believed they had to perform a ritual to, this is a direct quote from her research, ‘thwart the coming of the mother of demons.’” I looked at Lucas.

  “Lilith,” he said grimly. “What kind of ritual?”

  I scanned farther down on the page, then flipped to the next page, which contained an itemized list of the contents of the monks’ pantry. The journal was blank after that. I flipped back a few pages, trying to see if I’d missed anything. “It’s not here,” I finally realized.

  Seth, perched on the desk to my left, glanced at his watch for the hundredth time. “Lunch ended a while ago,” he said. “I think we should be getting back.”

  “Just a little longer,” I pleaded.

  “My mom is going to be home anytime,” Seth said. “She’ll freak out if she finds us here. Trust me, it’s not worth the drama.” When I still didn’t budge, Seth pulled on my shoulder. “Okay—I’ll bring you back the next time she leaves town. I promise. Can we go now?”

  With effort, I set the journal down, watching as Seth buried it under the stack of papers where he’d found it.

  We hurried out of the house, trying not to leave any sign of our visit. On the way to my car, it finally hit me. What all of this really meant to me, personally.

  I froze in my tracks. Seth and Lucas, hurrying toward my car, stopped when they realized I was no longer with them. They turned back.

  “Braedyn?” Lucas asked.

  “Lucas,” I whispered. My hands started to tremble. Lucas crossed the distance between us in half a second.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “If this ritual is real,” I said. “That means there’s a way to keep the final battle from ever starting.” Lucas searched my face, uncomprehending. “My duty to the Guard will be fulfilled.”

  Understanding entered Lucas’s eyes, but he needed to hear me say it before he could believe.

  “I can become human,” I said.

  “What?” Seth, just a few feet behind us, stared at be blankly. “How is that possible?”

  But I couldn’t answer him. My eyes were locked on Lucas. He pulled me in tight, crushing me to him with the force of his emotion.

  Lucas released me, beaming. “Do you really think—”

  “We have to find out,” I said. “If it’s real—if it’s really real...” I twined my arms around his neck, afraid to speak the words and break this magical spell. Lucas lifted me off my feet, spinning me in a wide circle. I shrieked with laughter, not caring for the moment that we still knew nothing about this ritual, if it really existed, or if it could be reproduced.

  For now, we had hope. That was enough.

  Chapter 7

  We’d missed most of fifth period so we waited for the bell before sneaking back onto campus for sixth period. Sixth and seventh period were an agonizing wait, and when final bell rang I felt my shoulders sag with relief. All I wanted was to get home and talk to Dad about this ritual.

  It wasn’t until I opened my locker that I remembered I’d practically commanded Karayan to meet me in the plaza today. “Crap,” I muttered.

  “What’s wrong?” Cassie asked at my shoulder.

  I jumped, startled to find her there. “Just remembered there’s something I have to do today. Speaking of which, aren’t you working in the costume shop?”

  “Yeah, actually I need to get over there.” Cassie pulled a folded piece of paper out of her pocket and handed it to me.

  “What’s this?”

  “You tell me. Someone slipped it into my locker by mistake. It’s addressed to you.”

  I looked down at the note, which had my name written on it in a strong, confident hand. I opened the note. It read: Fair warning. I can’t take my eyes off of you. Your secret admirer.

  “Ooooo,” Cassie teased, reading the note over my shoulder. “A secret admirer.” Something about the note gave me chills. I looked up and saw Amber passing in the hall. Her eyes found my face, haughty and cold as ever. “What do you think Lucas would—”

  “I’ll catch you later, Cass.” I left her standing at my locker, rushing off to catch Amber at the drinking fountain. “Hey,” I said, grabbing Amber’s arm.

  Amber pulled angrily out of my grasp. “Touch me again,” she growled.

  I shoved the note under her nose, interrupting her. “What’s this supposed to mean?” Amber glanced at the note, gave me a disgusted look, and turned to walk away. I stepped around to block her. “Answer the question.”

  “Why do you think I’d have any idea what that means?” Amber asked. Judging from the look on her face, she’d never seen the note before.

  Uncertainty washed through me. “You didn’t write this?”

  Amber scoffed. “Please. I might be watching you, but there is no universe in which I’d say I admire you.” Amber pushed past me. This time I let her go.

  Down the hall, Cassie was waving at someone. It was Mr. Hart. As he waited for Cassie to join him, Mr. Hart noticed me watching him and gave me a brief, inscrutable smile. Then Cassie was standing beside him and they were walking out of the building toward the performing arts center.

  I looked back down at the note and turned it over.

  There, drawn by a very capable hand, was a single, graceful rose. My mouth suddenly went dry. The rose was nearly perfect, full of dark red petals with just a touch of white at their base. I knew this rose. There was only one place it grew. My dream garden.

  Lucas came with me to the plaza that afternoon. He didn’t trust Karayan, and he wasn’t shy about letting me know it.

  “She wrote that note to scare you,” he said. “To show you she can get close to you.” Lucas glanced at me, grim. “Or close to your friends. She left it in Cassie’s locker.”

  I bit my lip, unconvinced. “Why, though? Why threaten Cassie?”

  “Ask her.”

  We arrived to find Karayan already sitting at a little table outside an artisan coffee shop. She saw me coming and sto
od. Her lips thinned when she saw Lucas with me.

  “Oh look. You brought your puppy.” She gave Lucas a condescending smile. “And no leash. He must be very well behaved.”

  Lucas glared murder at Karayan. “Watch it,” he growled. “I’m a Guardsman.”

  “My mistake.” Karayan smiled, but her eyes glinted with something cold and unfriendly.

  “Chill out,” I snapped. “Both of you.”

  Karayan waved to the empty chairs at her table. The gesture was impatient rather than inviting. When we sat, Karayan leaned closer, lowering her voice. “Talk fast. I’d rather not be seen with you two.”

  I slapped the note down on the table in front of Karayan. She glanced at it, then looked at me, bored.

  “So you’ve got a secret admirer,” she said. “Am I supposed to throw you a parade?”

  “We know you wrote it,” Lucas said.

  “Me?” Karayan smiled, amused. I flipped the note over. Karayan’s eyes found the rose. She stopped smiling.

  “So you didn’t draw this?” I asked.

  Karayan shook her head, picking up the drawing. “Who else has been in your garden?”

  “No one,” I said.

  Karayan pushed the note back across the table. “Well, clearly someone’s seen your roses. And apparently she wishes to remain anonymous.”

  “How do you know it’s a she?” Lucas asked.

  “Because only a Lilitu could force her way into another Lilitu’s—” but Karayan suddenly stopped, struck by a thought.

  A fist of lead closed around my heart. “The incubus?” I asked.

  Karayan gave me a sharp look.

  “You know?” Lucas asked. “You know there’s an incubus in town? Where is he? What does he want?”

  Karayan frowned at him, clearly irked by his presence. “Sorry. I don’t know anything about your party crasher.”

  “Who is he?” I asked.

  “That’s the kind of thing that’s usually included in the blanket ‘I don’t know anything’ statement,” Karayan said, as though explaining something to a toddler.