Incubus (63 page)

I tried to catch sight of Seth before first period, hanging out by his locker. He didn’t show. First bell

rang and I gave up, resigning myself to seeing him in physics. Provided he had even come to school

today.
What if he told his mom and she kept him home from school to keep him away from me?
I

wondered.
What if I never get the chance to explain?

I walked into first period. Amber was back in her usual spot in the second row of class, talking

with Missy. She pointedly ignored me as I entered, which was fine by me.

Cassie was scribbling notes into the margins around another costume drawing.

“Nice,” I said, admiring the design of another tunic, this one encrusted with some kind of rubies.

“Sorry,” Cassie said without looking up. “Can’t talk right now. My fabric estimates are due

today.”

“Right.” I opened my history book, pretending to look over last night’s chapter, feeling awkward

and lonely. Not a great start to a very long day.

The morning classes seemed to last forever. I found myself checking the clock every two or three

minutes, urging time to leap forward. But when the time came for physics class, I found myself

dragging my feet, suddenly unsure about whether or not I wanted to see Seth after all. I got to class

just before the bell rang announcing the start of class.

Seth was sitting in a desk near the back of the classroom, head bent over his book. Just in front of

him, Ally and Amber spotted me and shared a whispered conversation I’m pretty sure featured me as

the main subject.

I was trying to summon the courage to go talk to Seth when Cassie and Royal entered. I felt my

heart surge when I saw Royal, and forgot about Seth for the moment. Royal wore a light grey knit

skullcap. He gave me a thin smile, tugging on the back of the hat self-consciously.

“Not my favorite choice, but the alternatives were my brother’s baseball cap or my mom’s beret.”

“I told you,” Cassie said. “It looks fine.” She turned to me for back up. “Tell him, Braedyn.”

“Actually,” I said, eyeing him critically. “It looks kind of edgy and cool.”

“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