Incubus Moon (43 page)
Authors: Andrew Cheney-Feid
“Austin?”
I glanced over my shoulder again at the darkened bedroom. “Coming,” I told Niko.
Turning back to face the
Dark Mother
, I found that she had vanished. No trace of her presence hung in the cool night air. To the east, a pale sliver of light began to encroach on the mantle of darkness. I could already feel the sun’s influence and wondered, for a terrible instant, if I could meet it without bursting into flames.
Then again, had Haemon been victorious, he would have been able to walk in sunlight. Why should it be any different for me because I’d claimed his powers?
One thing was certain: the city below was waking up. A new day, a new life, was dawning, and I felt a welcome rush of exhilaration at the prospect of meeting it head on.
The
Dark Mother
might be all-powerful in some spheres and could certainly become a formidable enemy, if I wasn’t careful about how I played things with her. But she’d also been posturing. She needed me, needed to keep me compliant, to fashion me into her ultimate weapon of destruction. Whatever that was. We’d just have to wait and see which of us would be the first to bend to the other’s will.
The sun slipped over the horizon then, and the world and the sky around it exploded into vibrant bands of pinks and golds. I turned away from it and began walking back to the bedroom—and without bursting into flames!
Once inside, I quietly closed and locked the sliding glass door behind me. About to climb into bed and snuggle up next to Niko, my cell phone vibrated on the nightstand. I picked it up.
Unknown caller
was displayed.
“Hello?”
“Austin?”
My pulse jumped. I recognized the voice. “This is he.”
“It’s is Julia Caulfield, the police detective? We need to talk.
It seemed as though that adventurous new day had already arrived
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