Incubus Moon by Andrew Cheney-Feid Read Free Book Online Page A

the Man of Steel.
    So I came up with a plan that satisfied most of my concerns. The basis of this plan was that I wasn’t going to let Mark and Christie get anywhere near Riccardo. I’d also decided that revealing the truth about myself to the Golds was pointless. I couldn’t begin explain how this condition had befallen me. None of my internet research thus far had answered that very basic yet titanic question. There were no web-related accounts of Joe Human waking up one morning to discover that he’d become a sex demon.
    So what ended up tipping the scales in favor of my letting Mark and Christie come along with me? An unexpected phone call from Psychic Joy.
    “My son told me you called.” Her tone was guarded.
    “For two straight months! Joy, I’ve been worried sick about you.”
    “I’m doing…better.” The strain in her voice belied her words. “Look, Austin, I don’t know how to say this any other way, so I’m just gonna say it. You’re dangerous. To me and others like me. After you left my house that day, my guides came to me. They warned me that you’re a conduit; a channel for bringing evil into the world.” The harshness of her remark floored me. Joy Ebersole wasn’t a cruel person by nature, at least I hadn’t thought she was. “That’s why I can never see or speak to you again. You’ve opened a door no one else can close, and I have a family to think about. You get that, right?”
    “That I’m a gateway to badness?” To say that my feelings were a little chaffed was an understatement. “Even if it’s true, it’s not my fault, Joy. I didn’t ask for this.”
    “It doesn’t matter. The damage has been done.”
    I’d sensed she was about to hang up. “Please, just answer me one last question and I swear I’ll never bother you again.”
    She gave a weary sigh, which I took to mean that she was waiting for me to continue.
    “Am I a danger to everyone around me?”
    “Psychics, primarily…and to yourself.” After another long pause, she added, “Evil is coming, Austin, and it’s targeting you.” This was followed by a click and a dial tone.
    After the initial shock of her call had worn off, a deep-seated anger boiled to the surface. I wasn’t a conduit for evil, and I sure as hell didn’t deserve to be treated that way by someone I’d grown to care about, or anyone for that matter. Weirdness had entered my life, okay, but that didn’t make me the fucking Anti Christ.
    Screw Joy Ebersole and her insensitivity! I was going to live my life to the fullest, which included spending as much time as possible with the two people I loved most in this world.
    I’d launched the hand-held receiver across the living room just as a modest tremor shook the floor and walls of my apartment. Guess I wasn’t the only one pissed off. The San Andreas fault had been in a shitty mood, too.
    “What gets me,” Christie said from her seat across the aisle, her voice re-anchoring me in the present, “is how much you look like your dad. Laura showed me dozens of pictures of him over the years. He was basically you with black hair.”
    Mark nodded. “I’m with the wifey on this one.”
    Joshua Iverson and I did share a striking resemblance. Too striking for it to be mere coincidence. “Then why fake a birth certificate and stash it away at the bottom of a jewelry case?”
    Mark shrugged. “It’s bizarre, I’ll give you that. But if the adoption was legit, it seems more likely that Joshua was your biological dad, and that, for whatever reason, he gave you up for adoption.”
    “To his own wife?” Christie countered. “That makes no sense.”
    “True. And there’s also the matter of the Iverson Family Trust, of which you’re the sole beneficiary. The house in Monrovia belonged to your dad’s family, Austin. All of this provable stuff. What about your neighbors?” he pressed. “They might be able to tell you—”
    “Not to sound callous,” Christie interrupted him, “but I’m