Incubus (The Daughters Of Lilith)

by Jennifer Quintenz

  I shuddered, and leaned my head against the window frame. Lucas’s light had gone out over an hour ago. I felt a pang of longing to join him in his dream, where I knew I couldn’t accidentally hurt him. But I had other plans tonight.

  Finally, Dad’s pacing ceased. I heard the springs on his bed groan, followed by the faint click of his light switch. I forced myself to wait another half-hour, then eased my bedroom door open. At the door to Dad’s room, I could hear the steady, deep breathing of sleep. My shoulders unknotted, releasing a tiny fraction of the tension from the day. At least now I could do something.

  I hurried down the stairs, slipping down the back hall to the guest room. I could see light spilling out from the crack under the door. I knocked, and heard a soft thud as Seth jumped out of bed. Moments later, the door opened.

  “We’re good?” he asked.

  “He’s asleep. What did you find out?”

  “You better come in.”

  Seth opened the door a little wider. I entered the room, and Seth closed the door behind me. His bed was still made, strewn with notes he’d taken while reading his mother’s journal. On one page he’d made a rudimentary sketch of the vessel. I picked it up. It was nowhere as detailed as the drawing that had burned up on Angela’s desk, but it was a start.

  Seth stood behind me to get a look at the drawing over my shoulder. “It’s an instruction manual,” he said. “The vessel, I mean.”

  “An instruction manual for what?”

  He shuffled through the notes on his bed and came up with a handful of crinkled pages. “For the ritual. Apparently it’s kind of complicated.”

  “No surprise there,” I said, an edge of bitterness pushing through my voice.

  Seth glanced at me and smiled. “We’ll get it. I mean, the monks only had the vessel. We’ve got the internet.” He handed me the page. “Here. This is the list of ingredients we’ll need.”

  I scanned the notes. “Ericameria nauseosus, Juniperus scopulorum, Pinus edulis, Rosa canina hips—” I looked up. “The ingredient list is in Latin?”

  “Don’t panic. According to Google, it’s mostly a bunch of plants.” Seth leaned over to point at the page in my hand, translating. “Basically—chamisa, juniper, piñon, dog rose hips, et cetera.”

  “So, we just have to go out into the desert and pick some wildflowers?”

  “Not exactly,” Seth said. “Some of them have to be tinctures, like the juniper and the rose hips. The problem is, we’ve only got two weeks.”

  “Hm. Yes,” I said. “And that might mean something to me if I knew what a tincture was.”

  Seth ducked his head. “Right, sorry. A tincture. It’s just basically alcohol infused with a berry or something. So, like, take some juniper berries, soak ‘em in vodka for a month or two, then strain them out and voila, tincture.”

  “Vodka, huh?”

  “Well, the clearer the alcohol, the better. Medicinal alcohol would be best, but vodka works in a pinch.”

  I shook my head. “Those monks must have really liked their moonshine.”

  Seth chuckled.

  I returned to scanning the page. “Herbs and tinctures.”

  “Yes, mostly,” Seth said. I heard something in his voice and looked up. He avoided my gaze. “It shouldn’t be too hard to get our hands on most of that stuff.”

  “So what’s the problem?”

  Seth hesitated, then cleared his throat. “Here.” He pointed back at the list. “The last ingredient.”

  I read it off the page. “Sanguinis lamia.” I looked up, suddenly chilled. “Sanguinis? Doesn’t that mean—”

  “Yeah,” Seth said. “Blood.”

  “So, what is lamia?”

  Seth squirmed in his socks. He couldn’t meet my eyes. “It’s the Latin word for Lilitu.”

  “Oh.” I turned and sat on the edge of Seth’s bed.

  “But we don’t need much,” he said. “Just a few drops should work.”

  “You think the monks stopped with just a few drops?” My voice sounded faint in my ears.

  “I think if more was needed, they would have detailed it in the ingredients list.” Seth sat beside me on the bed. “Seriously, Braedyn. They took crazy insane notes about every single ingredient. Which juniper berries could go in the tincture, how to harvest the perfect rose hips—but when it came to sanguinis lamia...” he shrugged. “That’s all they wrote; no annotation, no explanation.” He studied my face, concerned. “Braedyn? I wouldn’t ask you to do this if I thought—”

  “No,” I interrupted him. “It’s okay. I’ll do it.” And as I said the words, I knew that I had to do it. If I wanted to be free of this curse, if I wanted a normal life, this was the way.

  “Are you sure?” Seth asked.

  “Why? Are you hiding another Lilitu in here somewhere?” I asked.

  Seth smiled. “No. ‘Fraid not.”

  “Then it’s settled.”

  Seth let out a long sigh. “The only problem left is—”

  “The vessel.” I finished the thought for him. Seth nodded, his eyes solemn. “Well, we’ll have to cross that bridge when we come to it,” I said. “In the meantime, you’ve got our shopping list. There’s a lot we can do to prepare.”

  “Yes,” Seth agreed. “But we don’t have a lot of time left.”

  I could see the worry in his eyes. We had two weeks to find this mysterious vessel, or all the tinctures in the world wouldn’t help us lock the Lilitu out.

  “Why didn’t you tell me what you were doing?” Lucas asked, leaning against the locker bay. It was the first time we’d been alone together since Seth and I had ditched school to search his mom’s house.

  “You’re right. I should have,” I said, closing my locker. I was exhausted. I’d left Seth’s room at around four in the morning, leaving me just over two hours to nap before I had to get up for the day. I could tell Lucas was upset, but I really didn’t have it in me to do this right now. I started to turn away. Lucas caught my arm.

  “No, come on.” Lucas’s eyes searched my face. “You ditched school with Seth, fine. Whatever. But you went to his house, even though you knew how dangerous it was—I mean, seriously, the incubus broke in while you were there.” I felt his hand tighten on my arm.

  “I know.” I felt miserable, but what was done was done.

  “You could have died.” Lucas’s voice was tight with emotion. “You should have died. How you guys managed to escape with your lives—”

  “I know, Lucas. I know. It was a huge mistake. How many times do you want me to say I’m sorry?” I snapped. Lucas released me, stung. He turned his head, pretending to watch the students hurrying past us before first bell. I’d hurt him. I took a deep breath and let it out, trying to regain my calm. “I—that came out wrong.”

  “No, I was pushing.” Lucas looked down at his fingernails. “It’s just that we used to tell each other everything. So, what is it? You don’t trust me anymore?”

  “No, Lucas.” I reached out and caught his hand, risking the touch. “Of course I trust you.”

  “So why didn’t you tell me?”

  “Because I knew you’d stop us,” I said. “And I need this ritual to work.”

  “Wait, what are you saying?” Lucas asked, his face stricken. “You’re not trying to do the ritual on your own?”

  I felt a thrill of fear shoot down my spine. If Lucas told my dad that Seth and I hadn’t given up, I’d be lucky if I didn’t end up under house arrest. At the very least, it would be nearly impossible for us to gather everything we needed in time. I forced a smile, steeling myself to lie. But as I started to speak, Lucas released my hand and took a step back.

  “Wait,” he said. “You know what? Maybe we shouldn’t have this conversation right now. I don’t want you to say something you might regret later.”

  Lucas turned and left me standing by my locker alone. I closed the locker with a quiet click, reeling.

  This is for the best, a small voice in my head said. The le
ss he knows, the easier it will be on him. Once the ritual is complete, the door will be locked, you’ll be human, and there won’t be anything left to be upset about.

  So why didn’t that thought comfort me?

  I kept meaning to talk with Lucas. I felt like I needed to apologize again, or offer him some comfort—or do my best to throw him off our scent. But it was harder and harder to find time to talk with him alone during the day, and by the time I crawled to bed each night in the pre-dawn, I was too tired to try to have the conversation in a dream. Seth and I had our hands full preparing for the ritual; I didn’t seem to have any energy left for anything else.

  By the time Thursday arrived, I’d reached a state of exhaustion that I wouldn’t have believed possible. My irritation had gradually grown into paranoia, which exploded that day in physics class.

  I was working with Seth on some experiment, the details of which hadn’t been able to penetrate my sleep-deprived mind. He seemed to have it under control, so I let my thoughts wander. Amber and Ally had their heads together in the back of lab. As I watched them, I saw Ally’s eyes flick past me, toward the lab table where Royal and Cassie sat working on their experiment. It put my hackles up. Ally caught me staring. A faint smirk twisted her pretty lips, but that was the only indication she gave of having seen me. She and Amber turned back to their lab work. I kept my gaze fixed on their table, waiting for the next indication of what they were planning.

  Someone snapped their fingers in front of my face. I turned, furious.

  Royal was standing at our desk, giving me an odd look. “Earth to Braedyn, anyone at the helm?”

  “What?” I blinked, and noticed that Seth was at the front of the room, talking with Mr. Harris.

  “I was saying, I think I might actually have a date to my brother’s wedding in January.” Royal’s eyes danced with anticipation. But something kept scratching at the back of my mind. I glanced back at Amber and Ally, who were bent over their Bunsen burner, concentrating on the experiment. “Okay, I was expecting a bigger reaction to news of my first actual boy date, but clearly no dice. Just let me know when you’re accepting applications for friends again.” Royal turned and walked away.

  “Wait, Royal,” I said. But he ignored me, returning to the lab table he shared with Cassie. Whatever he said to her caused her to glance at me, frowning. I groaned to myself. I’d have to do some serious work to earn back their trust. After winter solstice.

  A shrill giggle banished thoughts of Royal from my head. I spun around, and this time I caught Amber smirking at me. As our eyes met, she covered her mouth with her hand, as if saying, “oops, you caught me.”

  Seth returned to our table, looking at our experiment plan. “So, apparently we were adding the wrong—”

  “I’ll be right back,” I said, interrupting him. I walked over to Amber and Ally’s lab table.

  Amber looked up at me, and genuine surprise flashed across her face before she covered it with an irritated scowl. “What?”

  “What are you plotting?” I hissed.

  Amber very deliberately picked up her beaker and smiled at me. “I don’t know what you’re—”

  “Don’t lie to me,” I snapped. “You hurt another one of my friends and—”

  Amber flicked her wrist, sending her beaker crashing to the floor. At the same time, she flinched back from me. “Braedyn?!” Her shriek cut through the lab chatter.

  Mr. Harris looked up, instantly on alert. “Ladies? Is there a problem?”

  “What is your damage, Braedyn?” Ally asked, getting into the act. “That was our experiment!”

  Mr. Harris walked over to us, his concern deepening. “Braedyn? You want to tell me what you think you’re doing?”

  “What?” I felt like the room was closing in on me. “That—no, I came over to talk to her—”

  “To threaten me, you mean?” Amber asked, eyes smoldering. I didn’t have to fake the hatred in my glare.

  “Clean it up, Braedyn,” Mr. Harris said. “And then you can take your write-up over to the headmaster’s office personally. I do not tolerate fighting in my classroom.”

  The entire class was silent, watching me with bated breath. I wanted to scream. I wanted to wipe that smirk off Amber’s face permanently. But instead, I clamped my teeth shut and nodded.

  “All right, Amber, I’ll get you another beaker,” he said.

  “Thank you, Mr. Harris.” Amber even managed to make her voice quiver a little. When Mr. Harris turned to head back to the front of class, Amber’s eyes cut back to me.

  “Leave my friends alone,” I hissed. “Or you’ll wind up with more than a broken beaker.”

  She tossed her icy blond hair and followed Mr. Harris toward the front of class.

  My eyes shifted and I saw Seth staring at me. Concern pulled his forehead into furrows. He gestured silently, offering to help me pick up the glass. I shook my head, resigned. I was about to start picking up the shattered beaker when Amber passed Seth at our lab table. She stumbled, knocking into him. He’d been focused on me and was totally unprepared for the hit.

  Seth stumbled back into the lab table, hard. There was a soft whoosh, then someone screamed. Amber’s face registered horror. Seth had stumbled back into the lit Bunsen burner; the whole back of his shirt was on fire. He arched his back, eyes rolling.

  “Get it off, get it off!” Seth screamed, struggling to free himself from the flaming prison of his shirt.

  Mr. Harris moved faster than I’d have thought possible. He ripped open a cabinet and grabbed a thick grey fire blanket. In two strides he had it unfurled. He tackled Seth, catching him in the blanket and controlling their fall to the ground. Within seconds, the smell of singed wool filled the lab. Seth finally struggled out of Mr. Harris’s grasp, but the blanket had done its work. Blackened strips of ruined cotton covered Seth’s back, sending an acrid smoke into the air.

  A strange silence fell over the class as Mr. Harris and Seth recovered, rolling to their knees and breathing hard.

  Mr. Harris reached out to Seth. “Can you stand, son?” Seth nodded, tears of pain squeezing out of the corners of his eyes. Mr. Harris helped him up. “Everyone turn off your Bunsen burners,” he said. “I’ll meet you back in our classroom.” When no one moved, he glared around the room. “Now.”

  Students moved toward the door quickly.

  Ally passed me on her way out, eyes dangerous slits. “It’s like your friends are cursed or something.”

  I clasped my hands around my arms. Cassie. Royal. Now Seth. Amber was making good on her threat, clearly undeterred by my feeble attempts to get her to back off and leave my friends alone. She’d hurt every single one of them—except for Lucas. With a shiver, I watched the last student leave the lab. Lucas. What did she have in store for him? And more importantly, how could I stop her before she got the chance to hurt him?

  If I’d thought Mr. Harris would forget about sending me to the headmaster’s office, I was disabused of that notion as soon as he returned to class. After briefly reassuring us that Seth was okay—an ambulance had been called as a precaution but his skin didn’t appear to have even blistered—Mr. Harris wrote up a quick note to the headmaster and dismissed me from his classroom for the day.

  I walked the note up to the administration building, stewing. I arrived and handed the note to Fiedler’s administrative assistant, a woman I’d seen a few times before but had never spoken to. She glanced at me disapprovingly over her glasses and told me to have a seat, Headmaster Fiedler would be with me shortly. “Shortly” turned out to be half an hour, giving me plenty of time to sit with my thoughts. When he finally opened the door to his office and beckoned me inside, my anger had faded, leaving me feeling sick inside.

  “So, Braedyn, you want to tell me what’s going on?” Headmaster Fiedler had my record up on his computer, and whatever he saw there had him worried.

  “Amber broke her own beaker,” I started.

  “I’m not talking about the incident in cla
ss, although that is going to warrant some discussion.” He steepled his hands, studying me. “Up until last semester you were an exemplary student here. Your teachers couldn’t say enough good things about you.”

  He watched me, waiting for some kind of answer. I shrugged, uncomfortable. “I guess it’s been kind of a hard year.” I heard myself utter the words, then had to bite my lip, suppressing a manic urge to laugh. A hard year? Welcome to my entry for “understatement of the decade.” In the last 12 months, I’d learned my father wasn’t my father and I wasn’t human, I’d watched a powerful Lilitu drag Lucas off to kill him, and I’d fought my way through her guards to save him—nearly dying myself in the process. I looked down at my hands, struggling to maintain my composure.

  “I understand,” Fiedler said.

  “No disrespect intended, sir,” I murmured, “but I don’t think you do.”

  “You watched a burglar murder your friend Derek in your home,” Fiedler said. I looked up, stricken. Derek. He hadn’t even crossed my mind. “I can’t say I’ve ever been through what you’ve been through, Braedyn, but I know that it’s affected you profoundly.”

  A stinging pressure spread through my nose and into my eyes. I bit my lip, holding back the flood.

  “And then, just a few months later, you were in a serious car accident with another good friend. Lucas, wasn’t it?”

  I dropped my eyes, avoiding the necessity of lying. That “car accident” was our cover story for the extensive injuries Lucas and I had sustained in our battle against Ais.

  “I’m afraid that we’ve failed you,” Fiedler continued.

  “How do you figure that?” I asked.

  “You’ve been through significant trauma—both you and Lucas. We should have mandated counseling sessions for you both.”

  I felt my head snap up. Fiedler was watching me closely. I swallowed, afraid to speak. It was hard enough fitting everything in as it was, if I had mandatory counseling sessions on top of everything else...