Incubus Moon Read Online Free PDF Page A

writing sessions was common enough for Joy. The howling wind, dog and spooky bell effects were not. And what was that smell? It reminded me of rotting oranges. Just like—
    … comes for you , her pen furiously wrote on the notepad once more.
    “Who’s coming?” I asked, not at all certain I wanted to know the answer.
    The entity using Joy’s body paused. Her chin lolled against her chest, eyes hooded, her fingertips gripping the quivering pen. Shadow Walker , she wrote.
    As far as I knew, Psychic Joy was not in the business of channeling evil spirits. After all, she’d uttered the dang cleansing prayer and everything! The gooseflesh playing rush hour up and down the back of my neck and arms begged to differ.
    I got to my feet, unsure of what to do or say next.
    “Be seated!” My ass landed so hard on the folding chair that several of the wooden slats beneath it split. Then the entity possessing my friend trained calculating eyes on me. “Darkness is nigh, child, yet you trifle with this insignificant human.”
    The tiny hairs on the back of my neck were now doing the hula.
    The entity gave a dry, mocking laugh. “You are wise to fear. The Shadow Walker knows no such fear. It searches for you even now. For the essence of an incubus it must have.”
    The essence of a what?
    “An Eternal Child. The Dark Fruit of Lilith.”
    Even if my brain wasn’t quite processing what I was being told, the entity’s words struck a resonant chord inside me, touched some dormant part of me that made the weird connection. And this time, the tremor that rocked my spine registered an eight-point-oh.
    Joy’s face contracted with inner struggle, her head moving in the same erratic fashion. She was fighting the invader. Trying to push it out.
    “The advent of your thirtieth year has awakened your true nature. The Shadow Walker senses this, as soon others of its kind will.”
    I couldn’t budge from the chair. “Are you responsible for my dreams?”
    “The vessel through which I speak is incapable of bringing you closer to your true nature,” it said, ignoring my question. “Nor can it prevent the Shadow Walker’s coming…”
    Joy had warned me once that lost, angry souls existed. They clung to the living and reveled in toying with them out of spite or boredom. They often communicated in clever half-truths designed to create uncertainty and fear in the listener.
    The scent of decaying citrus intensified and the air collided with itself, a hissing resonance filling my ears. “Reject my counsel and ugly death shall be your reward.”
    The rage that had nearly driven me to slit that Texan’s throat last night gripped me with such force that I reeled in my chair. I could move again!
    “Yes! Embrace what you are before it is too late,” the entity roared. “Let it guide you to your destiny, to your one true mother. Only she can unite you with your full potential.”
    The grief and loneliness of the past month collided with this newfound rage and my voice came out in a low growl. “And you can go back to hell where you belong!”
    A thunderous clap shook the bungalow to its footings and Joy’s head fell forward onto the table, her long russet hair cascading around her cherubic face. “Austin?”
    I rushed around the table to kneel at her side. “Please tell me you’re okay!”
    “About a couple of county lines over.”
    The anger, that terrible sense of power building inside me, was subsiding. “You told me you didn’t channel the frickin’ evil dead…”
    “Not dead.” Joy straightened in her chair with considerable effort and stared down at the jumble of words scrawled across the pad of paper. “When it took me over,” her glassy eyes widened and she began to tremble, “I saw something I wasn’t meant to.”
    “Should I call John?” John was her husband.
    “No! He can’t help me. No one can.” She reached for my arm, but fell forward in her chair, cradling her face in her hands and began to sob. “It saw me,