Incubus (The Daughters Of Lilith)

by Jennifer Quintenz

  I closed my mouth, suddenly unsure if telling Lucas what we’d planned was a good idea.

  “Let’s get to school. A dose of normal life will do us all some good.”

  I forced a smile. Lucas gave me one last look before sliding into my car and closing his door. As I walked around to the driver’s side, I knew Seth and I would be making this run solo.

  Hiding my plans from Lucas was too easy. He walked me to class, and we hovered at the door until a minute before first bell. He stood so close to me I could feel the warmth emanating from his skin.

  “Last night, when I heard you scream,” Lucas said quietly. “You have no idea. It was like my world stopped spinning.” He brushed the backs of his fingers across my cheek.

  I lowered my lashes, savoring the touch. “Lucas.” My breath came out in a husky whisper.

  “It’s you,” he whispered. “What I want. What I’m fighting for. Whenever I lose the faith, all it takes to inspire me again is you.”

  I drank in the sight of him. Lucas’s eyes gleamed faintly green in the light of the hall. In them, I could see the depth of his trust. This. If I could only explain this to Seth, he’d understand. Lucas knew my secrets, knew the danger I posed, and he loved me anyway. He saw in me the person I chose to be, and he knew what that choice cost me. That’s what Seth didn’t get. Lucas did embrace all of me—the good and the bad. Where Seth saw something cool, Lucas understood the consequences of the power I wielded.

  Lucas withdrew his hand, and it felt like he’d taken a piece of me with him. “Until lunch,” he said.

  “Lucas.” I grabbed his hand, keeping him from leaving. I almost confessed the whole plot to him right there. But some part of me was just as desperate for the truth as Seth. Lucas looked into my eyes.

  “We’re going to get through this,” he said, misinterpreting the pain he saw. He leaned closer, until his lips almost brushed against my ear. “And everything’s going to be worth the wait.”

  I melted into him, risking another caress. I felt him breathe in sharply. His eyes locked with mine, and I forced myself away from him, battling the desire to simply give in, to lose myself in his kiss. Instead, I pressed my palms flat against the wall at my back. After a moment, my heartbeat slowed and I got my breathing under control. I saw Lucas struggling to do the same. “Promise me.” I whispered. I needed to believe.

  “I promise, Braedyn.”

  I forced a wry smile. “Then you’d better go.”

  Lucas gave me a smile that promised everything. He turned and vanished down the hall.

  The bell rang, snapping my thoughts back to the mission at hand. I pushed myself off the wall and slipped out of the building.

  I had to move quickly. If I got caught sneaking off campus, Fiedler would call my dad and this whole covert op would be over before it began. I made it to my car and pulled out of the parking lot without spotting another soul on campus.

  Seth was waiting on the porch when I pulled up to my house. His face eased when he saw me and I realized he’d started to worry that I wasn’t coming back for him.

  “Get in,” I said, glancing at the Guard’s house.

  “They’re not in there,” Seth said. “They got called away about 10 minutes ago.”

  “Finally we catch a break,” I said, pulling back onto the road.

  The drive to Seth’s house was quiet. Seth drummed his fingers impatiently on the window, lost in his thoughts. Fine with me. I had my own thoughts to wade through.

  I pulled up to Seth’s house. “No,” he said. “Keep driving. We shouldn’t park here, in case—the” He glanced at me, leaving the fear unvoiced.

  “Right.”

  I pulled around the corner of the next block and parked under a bare tree, dark as a charcoal sketch against the bright November sky.

  “We can go in the back way,” Seth said.

  I followed him down the street. He slipped between two houses, and I saw a small drainage ditch traveling the length of the block, creating a small alleyway between the rows of houses. Seth sprinted down the ditch and I had to race to catch up. We stopped beside a cinderblock wall halfway down the block.

  “My house,” he said, breathing hard. Someone had tossed an old milk-crate over the wall a few houses down. Seth picked it up and turned it over, creating a step for us to make climbing over the wall easier. He went first, and I heard his feet crunch into the gravel of his backyard. I followed. The yard was grim and dusty. A few scraggly weeds pocketed the ground, leading us to a covered cement slab—the back porch.

  Seth dug in his pocket for his house keys and let us in.

  The house was quiet, dark. The curtains were still closed, blocking out much of the daylight beyond.

  “In here,” Seth said, leading me quickly to his mom’s study. “Be careful of the piles—” he stopped, stricken. Angela would never know if we messed with her piles. He looked at me, and the pain of losing his mother rose up again in his eyes.

  “Let’s just do this,” I said.

  Seth nodded and turned back to the office. “I don’t know if she took her journal with her,” he said.

  “She didn’t,” I said. Seth looked at me sharply.

  “How do you—?”

  “I just know,” I said. “Trust me.” I hadn’t told Seth the details of Angela’s death. It had seemed too cruel. But I’d lived those last few moments in her head, and as she’d died, that journal had crossed her mind. I remembered—through Angela—where she’d kept it. I walked to a file cabinet against the back wall and opened the second drawer down. I was looking for a folder labeled Insurance. The journal was there, right where she’d left it.

  I heard Seth breathe out in amazement. I handed the journal to him. He sank onto the floor, thumbing it open. After a moment, I heard him sniff wetly. I turned away, giving him time alone with his mother’s last thoughts.

  I spent the next hour walking through the office, looking for anything else that might be important. An ancient copy of The Old Farmer’s Almanac sat on her desk. I glanced at it, and my eyes snagged on the date printed on the cover. 1793.

  Beneath it, half-covered, was a hand-made drawing of the vessel. I pushed the almanac aside. Not a drawing, I realized. A diagram. Each symbol on the vessel had been separated out and annotated. I scanned Angela’s handwriting. According to her notes, the carvings on the vessel were some kind of timeline.

  “Winter solstice,” Seth muttered.

  I turned, feeling that fist of ice closing tighter on my heart. “What did you say?”

  Seth stood, excitement giving him a burst of new energy. “The ritual. It has to be performed this winter solstice. If we don’t do it this year, we won’t have another opportunity for 20 years.”

  “I don’t understand. 20 years?”

  “It has to be performed on winter solstice under a full moon,” he explained. He brought the journal over to me, laid it open on the desk. He stabbed his finger at a passage in the journal. “They’re really rare. Mom says there have only been nine full moons on winter solstice since The Old Farmer’s Almanac began tracking heavenly events back in—”

  “1793,” I finished. Seth looked at me, surprised. I pointed to the almanac on her desk.

  “Yeah. That’s right. So if we don’t figure out this ritual in the next month, we won’t get another chance to lock the seal for 20 years.”

  I turned away from Seth so he couldn’t see my reaction. 20 years. If things kept going the way they had been, 20 years from now there might not be any Guard left to fight the Lilitu. And yet, that wasn’t what twisted my insides into a painful knot.

  20 years from now Lucas and I would be almost 40. I couldn’t ask Lucas to wait that long. I couldn’t wait that long. My life was happening now. And to sit on the sidelines for 20 years? As it was, I was¬ barely able to kiss Lucas without damaging him. What would happen when I grew up? I’d never be able to marry. Never honeymoon with the love of my life. Never have children. My life would pass me by as I wat
ched. No. By the next time a full moon landed on winter solstice, it would be too late for me.

  Seth flipped another page in the journal. “Listen to this. She says the vessel holds the secret of the ritual. It’s like—like a recipe or something—”

  A faint crash came from the front of the house, followed by the tinkling sound of glass falling to the floor.

  Seth looked at me, his face going white.

  Without thinking, I grabbed Seth and pulled him out of the office. I meant to head for the back door, but a shadow crossed the threshold from the kitchen. Desperate, I pulled Seth into a half-open hall closet. Seth still clutched the journal in his hands. But the almanac—and the diagram of the vessel—were still face up on Angela’s desk.

  As I stared at the diagram, a figure crossed into the office. I jerked back, battling the urge to scream. The stranger walked to the desk, and fingered the pages spread across its surface. He moved to get a better look, and I saw his face.

  Instantly I recognized him as the man in the bookstore window - the man I’d seen when I met Karayan for coffee. He was in his mid-thirties, compact with well-defined arms, handsome. His short-cropped hair was brown, but those same platinum highlights gleamed when he passed through a finger of sunlight poking through the thick office drapes. And there was still something about him—something not of this world. My heart thudded in my chest. I couldn’t take my eyes off of him.

  I felt Seth reaching for my hand, and gripped his tightly in return.

  The handsome stranger picked up the diagram of the vessel. His lips thinned in disgust. “Idiot children,” he muttered. He dropped it back onto the desk. He rifled through the other papers there before turning to the bookshelves. He searched Angela’s office thoroughly for over an hour. Seth and I were trapped, unable to flee. The closet where we were hiding was directly opposite the office. If we moved to open the door, he would see. So we stayed put, spying on the stranger through a crack in the door. Waiting.

  The handsome stranger finally sighed. He pulled a flask out of his pocket. He unscrewed the top, then upended the flask over Angela’s desk. I smelled the acrid scent of kerosene. The stranger lit a match and dropped it onto the desk. Fire exploded across the surface of the desk, streaming down the sides to pool on the floor. The stranger walked out of the office as calmly as if he’d just turned on a light.

  Seth and I shrank back, afraid to breathe. The stranger turned, stopping in the office doorway, watching as the fire lapped up Angela’s life’s work. He stood there until the heat of the flames was like a furnace. Then he turned and was gone.

  Seth and I sat, terrified, but the heat from the blaze was too much to bear. I pushed open the closet door, cringing back as a wave of searing air blasted us. The coast was clear. I grabbed Seth’s hand and pulled him down the hall, out the back door, into the deserted backyard. We ran until we reached the back wall, then crouched there, sucking in great gulps of cool, sweet air.

  I turned to look at Seth. Smoke curled from his clothes, and his face was smudged with sweaty soot from the fire.

  “You look like hell,” he croaked, giving me a lopsided smile.

  “Seth?” Worry pierced my adrenaline-fueled panic. Seth looked almost manic.

  “I was right,” he said. He turned back to the burning house, eyes shining with a fierce satisfaction. “She figured it out. And now I’ve got what I need to bury that bastard.” Seth looked at me. “We’re going to make him pay.”

  I knew that look. It was the look on Lucas’s face whenever he talked about the Lilitu who’d killed his brother. I’d seen that look in Gretchen’s eyes, Hale’s eyes, Thane’s eyes. I’d seen it in Dad’s eyes, when he’d told me about the night of my biological father’s death.

  But this time, the enemy was an incubus.

  “Let’s get out of here,” I said. “This is something the Guard needs to hear.”

  When I pulled up outside my home, Dad rushed out to meet us.

  I could tell by the look on his face that I was in deep trouble.

  “Inside,” he said.

  “Just wait,” I said. “You have to listen to—”

  “Inside.” He glanced at Seth, who withered under his look. “You too.”

  Instead of obeying, I ran to the Guard’s front door.

  “Braedyn,” Dad growled behind me.

  I pushed open the door. No one was in the living room. I heard Dad’s step on the stair and raced for the basement.

  Hale was sifting through a massive crate of ancient weapons, so corroded by the years that they looked almost black. Lucas sat at the armory’s table, polishing one of the ancient weapons to a brilliant shine. When he saw me, he dropped the dagger and stood.

  “What the hell, Braedyn,” he said. Hurt and anger warred across his face. He must have realized we’d left him behind when we didn’t show up to lunch. So he’d come home to report us.

  Hale turned, his eyes narrowing when he saw me.

  “We have to do the ritual on winter solstice,” I said. “If we don’t, we won’t have another chance for 20 years.” My eyes slid back to Lucas. He blinked, processing this news. When the enormity of the consequences hit him, he took a step toward me.

  “Your father’s looking for you,” Hale said, advancing on me.

  “That’s what Angela figured out,” I said, losing my calm. “That’s why she died!”

  “It’s true,” Seth said from the top of the stairs. Dad gripped him by the upper arm and guided him down the stairs. “Listen to her. Please.”

  “All we have to do,” I gushed when Hale and Dad turned to me, “is find the vessel. It’s got all the answers we need.”

  “We have to find the vessel first,” Seth said as he and Dad reached the bottom of the stairs.

  “First?” Hale glanced at Seth, but Dad turned to me.

  “What does he mean?”

  “We saw someone at Seth’s house.” I glanced at Lucas. He was watching me, his expression haggard. “I think it was the incubus.”

  Dad closed his eyes, letting go of Seth to grab the stair railing for support.

  “The Guard has the vessel,” I said. “We just have to figure out where it’s being kept.”

  Lucas’s eyes lit up. “Of course. It looked familiar because there’s a similar design on-”

  “Lucas,” Dad snapped. “Go call Gretchen. Ask her to tell the others they can stop looking for Braedyn and Seth now.” Lucas jumped to obey. Dad turned on me. His eyes were full of fury. “This is not what I meant when I asked you to be there for Seth today,” he said quietly.

  “But now we know who the incubus is,” I said. “We’ve seen him. And now we know we have to figure out this ritual within the next two weeks. Seth and I can reconstruct Angela’s research, we have her—”

  “No.” Dad’s tone silenced me. “This is a matter for the Guard.”

  “But we’re so close,” Seth said.

  “It isn’t up for discussion,” Dad roared. I stumbled away from the rage in his voice. I’d never seen Dad this angry before. Seth fell silent, but he glared at Dad, mutinous.

  Hale glanced at Seth’s face, then turned to include me. “You’re part of the Guard,” he said. “Decisions like this are made at the top.”

  “Fine,” Seth said through gritted teeth. “So who do we have to ask for permission to save the world?”

  “Terrence Clay,” Dad answered. Two simple words, but beneath them I could sense a virtual ocean of roiling emotion about this man.

  “He’s been the head of the Guard for the last two decades,” Hale explained. “Something this important, we have to run it by him before we make any decisions.”

  “Why?” Seth asked. “You’re here now, doesn’t that make you more qualified to...?”

  “Trust me,” Dad cut in. “Clay would not like us acting on this without consulting him.”

  “So how do we reach him?” Seth asked.

  “Thane,” I murmured. “Thane’s already on the way, isn’t he
?”

  Dad gave me an appraising look and nodded. “We think Clay’s somewhere in Canada.”

  “But this is stupid,” Seth said, starting to lose it. “We can’t wait for permission for some stranger in another country! We’re running out of time!”

  “He’s right,” I said. “We’ve only got two weeks until winter solstice.”

  “If Angela was killed over this, and you go poking around in it—” Dad stopped himself, but I understood.

  “Tell Thane to hurry,” I said. “Please.”

  Dad took a deep breath and let it out in a sigh. He kissed me on the forehead. “I will. I will.” He drew me close into a tight hug, then released me. “Go back to school.”

  “What are you going to do?” I asked.

  “Gather the Guardsmen,” he said. “It’s time to find this incubus.”

  I led Seth up the stairs. We could hear Lucas talking to Gretchen on the phone in the kitchen. Seth grabbed my arm, stopping me in the privacy of the hall.

  He lowered his voice, but the emotion was clear in his eyes. “So, that’s it? It’s over?”

  “It’s not over,” I said. Let Thane go to Terrence for permission. If he gave it, great. But I wasn’t going to wait for some old man I’d never met to decide the course of my future. Even if it meant hiding from Dad. Even if it meant lying to Lucas. “We’re going to do this ritual. But we’re going to have to do it on our own.”

  Chapter 12

  The new moon, curved in the sky like a silver thread, had set hours ago. Stars glittered with fierce determination, but their light was too distant to offer much comfort. So different from the vast darkness of the dream reality. There, the glimmering lights of dreams responded in swirling gusts of motion to my every thought.

  I sat at my window, waiting for Dad to fall asleep. I could hear him moving through his room, pacing anxiously. It was all I could do not to follow suit. All afternoon I had been plagued by the knowledge that if we couldn’t stop this war from starting in the next two weeks, I might not get the chance to become human for the next two decades. I’d watch Lucas grow and age, while the Lilitu within held me back. And if I slipped? If waiting became too great a test of our patience? If I hurt Lucas?