Infamous

CHAPTER 8

Nick couldn’t see anything. He felt like he’d been swallowed whole by darkness. It was so thick and stifling that it made it hard to breathe.

Where am I?

The last thing he remembered was Kody holding on to his leg in the ambulance while she talked to the attending EMT. Everything else was a total blur.

Am I dead?

Where would a dead Catholic Malachai spend eternity, anyway? That was a scary and sobering thought. And a question he didn’t ever want to have an answer for.

All right, if I’m not dead, the next baboon who hits me with a board is going to get it shoved someplace real uncomfortable on his body. In fact, Nick would turn his attacker into a human or demon Popsicle with it.

Yeah, that’d learn them.

Smelling something rancid in the thick opaque air, he grimaced and held the back of his hand to his nose to try and block it. Gah, what was that? Smelled worse than burned powdered eggs, and he’d mistakenly thought nothing could outdo those. Well, nothing other than the one and only time he’d made the mistake of walking into the men’s restroom as Stone was walking out of it.

Oh yeah, that was definitely worse than this. He didn’t know what werewolves ate on a regular basis, but whatever it was, it rotted them from the inside out. No wonder Stone had perpetual PMS.

“Hello, there!”

He jumped at the unexpected voice coming from something that was within touching distance. “Excuse me?”

“I said, ‘hello.’ Do you not know that word? Do you not speak English?”

Not sure what to make of the strange voice, Nick stepped back from it. “I’m not sure how to respond to that. But I do speak English … most days and I understand you and the word ‘hello’.”

“Ah,” the disembodied voice said as if relieved, then he added, “I am speaking English, right?”

Nick scowled. “Um … yeah. Pretty sure.”

“Good. Sometimes it’s hard to tell. Languages come and they go. Sometimes I know them, sometimes—”

“Who are you?” Nick asked, interrupting him. “Where are we?”

“Which is it?” the stranger asked in an exasperated tone. “Who or where? Might as well throw a what in there too, just to hit all the bases. Oh, and I forgot how and why. That is all of them. At least I think it is.”

The voice paused, then counted them off. “Who, what, when, where, how, and why. Yes, that’s all of them,” he said proudly, then his tone turned to one of fretful anxiety. “Though the answer to some of them, I don’t know. Like how did you get here when you don’t know where here is? That’s kind of hard to do, isn’t it? I mean if you went someplace, shouldn’t you know how you got there and then by default, you should know where the where is because you got yourself there. Right?”

Nick felt like he’d blindly stumbled into a Who’s On First skit. Whoever this guy was, he wasn’t firing on all burners. Dude was seriously listing to port and about to capsize.

“Nor do I know why you’re here,” he continued without even stopping to take a breath. “That baffles me, too, if you don’t know where you are. Why would you go someplace when you don’t know where it is? And people call me names. At least I know where I am and who I’m talking to, and I never go anyplace without knowing beforehand where it is I’ve gone. Or at least where I was trying to get to. Except for this one time … we won’t go there. Not because I don’t know where it leads. I do. It leads to a bad memory I’ve no wish to revisit. Kind of like smelly relatives and nasty bosses. I don’t want to revisit them either, unless it’s to give them nightmares. In that case, game on.”

Nick gaped the whole way through his tirade. Yeah … This was the strangest person he’d ever met, and when you took into consideration that the captain of his football team was a werewolf, his boss an immortal vampire slayer who had a ninja-like, knife-wielding housekeeper, his tutor was Death, his best friend a demon, and his girlfriend something else entirely, and then there was the Simi …

Yeah, boy. Nick knew every variation of weird even when it didn’t slap him in the face. Most days, he was drowning in it.

But this guy …

He took weird to a level all his own.

When he finally paused for a breath, Nick quickly interjected, “How about starting with the first and then answering the latter?”

“Why didn’t you say so? I declare … some people are so strange. My name is Asmodeus. And you’re home. Did you not know that?”

Nick scoffed. “Dude, this is not my home. For one thing, my house isn’t this dark, even when my mama gets cheap and refuses to use lights in it. Bourbon Street ain’t ever this dark.”

Asmodeus made a sound of disgust. “Can’t you see in the dark?”

Was the guy totally off his gourd? No one could see in something this dark. “Dang it, Jim, I’m not a bat. I’m a boy.”

“Okay…” he stretched the word out. “My name’s not Jim. I just told you, it’s Asmodeus. And why can’t you see in the dark?”

Obviously not a Star Trek fan. But why would he even begin to think that Nick could see in pitch-black nothing? “Not really.”

“Hmmm. Odd. Okay.” He took Nick’s hand.

Nick pulled back. “Dude, don’t touch me.”

“Why not?”

Why not? Really? He had to explain stranger-danger and personal space? Where did this guy live that he didn’t understand grabbing another dude’s body parts without an invitation was a first class ticket to a major butt-whipping event.

“Look, I don’t know you, and we’re not dating. So keep your hands off me.”

Again with the annoyed noise. “Then how can I lead you if I can’t touch you when you can’t see?”

“How ’bout you don’t lead me anywhere?” Nick was beginning to like the darkness. Unlike Asmodeus, it was quiet and rather peaceful. And it definitely didn’t give him a headache.

“But you said you couldn’t see.”

Nick was aghast at the way this guy’s mind worked. “That doesn’t mean you can touch me.”

“I’m so confused.”

That made two of them. Obviously, this place had a whole different code of conduct than what he was used to.

All of a sudden, someone grabbed Nick from behind and hauled him backward.

“What are you doing here?” the man snarled in his ear.

Anger set fire to Nick’s blood and sent it thrumming through his veins like molten lava. His mother was the only one who used a tone that angry with him.

And occasionally Kyrian.

Menyara and Rosa from time to time. And he really should add Talon, though the Celt did better than most.

His teachers and principal, of course. He definitely couldn’t leave them out..

Yeah, okay, so he ticked a lot of people off. But …

“Dude, I don’t know you. I dang sure don’t have to answer you.”

“Dude,” the voice said in a mocking tone with pauses between the words as the man did a bad Valley girl imitation. “I’m like so gonna kick your annoying ass.”

Nick stiffened as he assumed his Cock of the Walk stance that said he was ready to battle. “I’d like to see you try.”

The man shot through the darkness so fast that Nick didn’t hear or feel him moving until he had Nick by the throat. “Word to the wise, punk. Don’t dare someone until you know who and what you’re dealing with, and what they’re capable of. You’ll live a lot longer, and stay in one piece, if you memorize that. Trust me.”

“Trust you?” Nick choked out through his constricted throat. “I don’t even know what species you are.”

“Precisely my point.” He let go of Nick and stepped back.

One second they were in the dark, in the next, they were inside a room that looked like something out of the Middle Ages. There was a fireplace so big that Nick could easily walk into it and have a spread out brunch for three people. Two comfortable-looking chairs with giant wings were set in front of it, over a lion-skin rug he was pretty sure had blood and bite marks still on it. In the far corner was a black desk that had ornate skeletal carvings on the wood.

And the man …

Not what Nick had expected at all. He looked like a banker or stock broker or something … Normal. Dressed in an elegant navy pinstriped, double-breasted suit, his shirt was crisp and white with a bloodred tie that flashed with something Nick would swear was living skulls inside the fabric. His dark blond hair was slicked back from his handsome face. But it was his eyes that were terrifying. Cold. Merciless. Mean. It was like looking at Death, and since Death tutored him, he ought to know it when he saw it. A frigid green, his eyes were so clear that they gave the illusion of glowing.

Asmodeus was a little more typical. Spiked white hair framed an impish face. His gray eyes showed exactly how mischievous he could be. And he glanced around the room as if he’d never seen it before.

“Who are you?” Nick asked the man in the suit.

A wry smile curved his lips. “I’ve been called many things by many people. But those who want to live usually refer to me as Thorn. And they do so in a reverent tone.”

Not a soothing name by any means. Ranked up there with the Dark-Hunter named Venom, and Venom was definitely not someone you wanted to mess with, either. “What are you?”

Thorn quirked an offbeat, wry grin. “That’s easy … and yet so complicated that I have no wish to venture there with you. Suffice it to say, I’m a carbon-based life form. And I’m one of the deadliest things that call the shadows home. And you, Malachai, are in a place you shouldn’t be.”

“And that is?”

“Azmodea.”

Nick felt ill with that knowledge. How the heck did he get here? Like Asmodeus had said, how could someone go someplace and have no clue how they got there?

Asmodeus grinned. “Unfortunately, it’s not named after me. Rather, I’m named after it. That part kind of blows. Got me bullied a lot as a small demon. Really hasn’t helped my adulthood all that much either. And when it comes to females, I’d really like to find my father and repay him for this hideous name he stuck me with.”

Thorn held his hand up in a dismissive gesture. “Demon, go home or shut up. If you continue to annoy me, you’ll be a stain on my floor. Understood?”

Asmodeus nodded.

Nick was still trying to make sense of everything. “I don’t understand. How did I get here?”

Thorn placed his hand on Nick’s shoulder again. In the next heartbeat, his eyes flashed silver, then red, and settled on a hazel brown. “Nick, your body is lying unconscious on a hospital bed. I cannot stress to you enough that you can’t let yourself do that. Ever. Under any circumstances.”

“What do you mean? I can’t sleep?” That would stink. He had visions of Nightmare on Elm Street dancing in his head. Now where was a sugarplum when you needed one?

Releasing him, Thorn laughed. “That could be entertaining. A Malachai with hallucinations brought on by sleep deprivation. But no. Sleep is different. You’re still in the world of man when you slumber. Half in, half out. Any little disturbance will wake you, and snatch you back to the conscious realm. However, when you’re medically unconscious, you’re beyond the realm of man and are fully on this side of the Nether Realm. Without being anchored in the human realm, your geist, or essence, rather, will automatically bring you here to serve your master. It’s also why you can’t ever take drugs or drink alcohol, my friend. The minute you lose control of yourself and alter your mental state, you open yourself up for others to manipulate and harm you.”

“You could even be possessed,” Asmodeus said with a hopeful note in his voice.

Thorn cast an evil glare at him and he literally retreated two steps.

“Well, he could,” Asmodeus murmured.

Nick gave Thorn a droll stare. “Have no fear about the drinking and drugs, waking up in my own urine and vomit, or freaking out from a psychotic episode doesn’t appeal to me in the least. Have no plans to do either, and I still don’t know what you are.”

Thorn’s features hardened. “Forget Ambrose, I’m the person you don’t want to become. If you want some free advice, and I know everyone does,” he said sarcastically, “stop caring about anyone but yourself. So long as you care more for someone else than you do yourself, you’re screwed. You’ll never stand tall and you’ll always have a weakness that will stop you dead in your tracks and bring you to your knees.” He leaned forward until their noses almost touched. “Always put yourself first, kid. With all the regrets I have, and believe me, I have many, that’s my biggest one. The dumbest mistakes of your life will all come from the choices you make, trying to protect what you love.”

“Wow. Thank you, Mr. Sunshine,” Nick said with feigned enthusiasm. That was the complete opposite advice of his mother, who believed you couldn’t live happily unless you cared about someone. To her, that was the point of life. Making connections. Valuing someone else above yourself. Without that, Nicky, we’re just meat sacks waiting to be free of the misery of our lives. You’ll never know true happiness until you find that small handful of people you’d die to protect.

Nick clapped Thorn on the back. “I’m so glad you came out with your sunny disposition and thoughts to cheer me up, ’cause I just didn’t feel crappy enough today. Thank you, Mr. Sun Meister, Meister Sun.”

Thorn rolled his eyes. “Don’t listen to me. Fine. Whatever. I didn’t listen either, and you see what lush and lovely housing it got me.” He gestured toward the sinister hole they were in. “Talk about sunshine … we don’t get, well, any here. And it never fails to amaze me how you can explain everything to someone, right down to the smallest detail. You show them exactly what not to do in order to be happy or successful, and still they don’t do it. They don’t listen. They come up with more excuses than a felon in prison. Fascinating … Disgusting, but fascinating. You can lead a demon to water, but you can’t force it to bathe.”

Sighing, Thorn glanced around the room, then back to Nick. “And right now, we have to get you out of here before someone else, who is not a good friend of yours or mine, senses you.” He cut a pointed stare to Asmodeus. “And no one is going to tell anyone or anything on the other side of that magic wall that you were here, either. Not unless they want to see the truly ugly side of my temper.”

Asmodeus gulped audibly.

Nick was about to speak when something slammed against the door. Hard. And from the deep sound of it, it was large.

And most likely, ugly.

“And look, lucky us, they’re here.” Thorn said something else in a growl that might have been a curse, but the language he used was so strange that Nick couldn’t be sure.

In the flash of a nanosecond, Thorn was covered in scaly armor that had spikes protruding from his shoulders and elbows. He glanced at Nick. “You’ve no real powers, do you?”

“Oh contraire, mon frère. I’m able to annoy all adults in ten syllables or less. Sometimes, I don’t even have to speak at all. I just walk into the room and it rankles them.”

“I can see that,” Thorn said drily.

Nick tensed as armor appeared on his body, too. “What’s this?”

“In the event they get past me and Asmodeus, who is going to fight with me or find himself disemboweled at my feet, let’s hope that keeps them from dragging you off to somewhere you don’t want to go.”

Before Nick could ask him to elaborate, the door burst open.

Thorn let fly a ball of fire into the chest of a tall, black blob. Asmodeus moved to stand in front of Nick and behind Thorn.

Asmodeus flashed a grin at Nick over his shoulder. “Let’s hope they don’t make it through the big guy, huh?”

“Where’s Adarian?” the blob hissed.

With both of his hands on fire, literally, Thorn stood at the ready, but he didn’t launch his fire at the beast. “You missed him.”

“I smell him. He’s here.”

Thorn’s hands flared brighter. “Do you see him anywhere? Now get out before I decide to answer this attack with one of my own.”

“I smell him,” it insisted. It sniffed the air like a bloodhound. Then it froze and turned its black eyes to Nick. “It’s you!” As he started to rush forward, he burst into flames.

Shrieking, it hit the ground and became a dark stain at Thorn’s feet.

By the look on Thorn’s face and the way he immediately went into warrior death match stance with both hands throbbing fire, it was obvious he wasn’t the one who’d caused the demon’s spontaneous combustion.

Out of the burning remains of the demon rose a glistening, translucent shadow. It grew larger and turned denser until it formed the shape of a man. Muscular and fierce, he had dark brown dreadlocks. His locks were shorter than Wren’s, and much more attractive—probably because, unlike Wren, he wasn’t completely antisocial. He actually styled his locks. And his goatee was every bit as perfect. He had sharp, angular features, most of which were covered by a pair of opaque black aviator sunglasses. Dressed all in black, he was even more frightening than the demon he’d killed.

But the oddest part about his appearance was what flashed through Nick’s mind when he looked at the newcomer. He saw him on a black horse in greenish-silver armor that flickered like a living creature. The man held a blood-soaked banner as he gleefully spread out his arm and sent misery to everyone, everywhere he rode.

What the.…

“Bane,” Thorn said in greeting, relaxing only a tiny degree. And as he did so, the fire on his hands turned down to a low, simmering flame. “To what do I owe the honor?”

Bane wiped his biker boots on the smoldering remains of the demon he’d killed. “I smelled a Fringe Guard and wondered what he was doing here, since this is not their domain.” He turned his head in Nick’s direction and quirked a sinister smile. “Now, I understand completely. So this is the baby Malachai Grim’s been teaching. Interesting…”

Nick looked to Thorn to see if this was friend or foe. From Thorn’s reaction-

He could tell absolutely nothing.

Until the fire on his hands finally went out. He gestured from Bane to Nick. “Nick, meet Bane.”

Interesting name. “Bane?” Nick asked. “What? Did your parents not like you?”

Bane let out an evil laugh. “Not really. But that’s all right. It meant that I didn’t have to worry about mourning them after I killed them.”

There technically wasn’t anything threatening in that, and yet …

Bane was not someone you wanted to meet late at night. Especially not when you were alone.

And unarmed.

Take that back, Nick wouldn’t want to meet him in a full suit of Kevlar wrapped in C-4 with a grenade launcher over his shoulder. Even with all that protection on your body, Bane would still be terrifying.

Asmodeus vanished from in front of him, only to reappear by Nick’s side so that he could whisper in his ear. “Bane is a good friend of Grim’s.”

Nick hesitated as his earlier vision of Bane and this latest tidbit came together and forced a realization on him that he didn’t want to have.

No. It wasn’t possible.

Was it?

Nick cleared his throat. “For the record, you’re not…”

A slow, taunting smile curved the right side of Bane’s mouth. “One of the Four Riders of the Apocalypse? Yes, Nick, I am.”

Stunned to the core of his being, Nick could barely accept that. Strange, right? He could handle his boss being an ancient Greek general. Acheron being an eleven-thousand-year-old whatever, and all the rest of the paranormal crap he stewed in.

But this …

It seemed truly impossible. After all you’ve been through, you’re really going to doubt this?

Yeah, he’d seen that episode of X-Files a few times too many, and while he wanted to deny Bane’s words all day long and into the next millennia, he couldn’t.

Scarily enough, it all made sense.

Nick raked a curious frown over Bane. From the tip of his biker boots to the top of his dreads. Aside from the obvious Faith No More wardrobe rip-off … “You look so … normal. Man, would my priest be disappointed.” Father Jeffrey expected the Riders in flowing robes like they had been depicted in some of the Tarot decks Nick had seen the psychics using outside the Cathedral in Jackson Square.

Bane wasn’t amused. “I now understand Grim’s need to pull the heart out of you. And here I just thought it was Grim. Nope. You really are that annoying.”

Nick arched a brow. “And this explains what Grim meant when he said anytime he got together with his friends, it didn’t go so well for humanity. You guys are … bad for crops.”

Bane took it in stride and returned with a counter. “The same could be said for you and your friends.”

Maybe.

Well, then again, whenever Bubba and Mark got together, it did tend to go nuclear. As much as he hated admitting it, Pestilence had a point.

Thorn returned to wearing his posh navy suit. “So Bane, why are you here?”

“Same reason everyone will be converging on you soon, and it’s not for your gory hospitality. The Malachai is back in Azmodea. People tend to notice.”

Thorn welcomed that news as much as Nick did. “We’ve got to shield him.”

Bane snorted. “Good luck with that.”

Thorn crossed his arms over his chest. “No, not luck, Bane. We’re going to shield him.”

Bane shook his head in denial. “That’s not my agenda.”

“Is today, buddy,” Thorn said with a wry grin, “unless you’re tired of breathing. I do know a few people who’d be willing to replace you on the cosmic food chain.”

Bane let out a long suffering sigh. “I don’t understand you. Why are you fighting for the worms?”

Thorn shrugged. “Because some of us believe in doing the right thing even when we shouldn’t. And you’re going to do the right thing where Nick is concerned because I have your number, and I’m not afraid to dial it.”

Bane’s eyes glowed a wicked, fluorescent green. “I hate you, Thorn.”

“Feeling’s mutual, Bane. Now, man the perimeter and shield the Malachai.”

Grumbling, Bane stepped over the still smoldering remains of the demon. “You owe me, Leucious.”

“Pestilence, Pestilence, Pestilence … I’ve already paid you back. You’re walking out my door. And in one piece, no less. Will my mercy ever have limitations?”

Flipping him off over his shoulder, Bane left them.

Thorn sobered the minute he was gone, and turned to face Nick. “You want to know what I am, Nick? I’m a creature like you. Conceived for only one purpose—to be a tool for evil.”

Yeah, okay … No news to him there. Thorn didn’t exactly hide that fact. Rather he embraced his role with both arms and a mighty hug. “Isn’t that what you are?”

Thorn laughed. “I can see why you’d think that. But no. I am my own man. No one tells me who I am or how to behave. Who to kill and when. Or how. I define myself. Not my birthright or supposed written destiny. Definitely not my biological donors. I, alone, control me.”

Strange as it was, Nick took comfort in those words. “So I don’t have to become the Malachai?”

“No. That’s not what I’m saying. You are the Malachai. Just as you’re part human. Nothing will ever change that. But, you don’t have to let that birthright consume or define you. It’s hard to fight against your nature. Like an addiction, only this one is genetic and hardwired into your DNA. That impulse to harm rides you with spurs. Eats you alive. But you can’t let it win. You have to remember that the evil part serves you as much as the good part does. There’s a time for peace and a time for war, and sometimes you have to embrace them both. Most of all, you have to control them.”

“Can you teach me?”

Thorn shook his head. “Only you can walk in your shoes, my friend. And I’m certainly not the voice in your head you want to listen to. I literally have destroyed everything I ever loved, either on purpose or by total accident. Believe me when I say that second chances are even more rare than finding true love. If you ever get one, don’t squander it, kid.”

Those words haunted him. “You know about Ambrose?”

Thorn’s eyes glowed the same bright green that Bane’s had done. “Have you ever heard the term ‘Metaverse’?”

“Yeah, contrary to my mother’s most highly held belief, I really do things other than play video games and text my friends. I know about alternate universes.”

Thorn inclined his head to him. There was a note of respect in his eyes. “Then you know that simultaneously, every outcome of everyone’s life is constantly in motion. One in each of the universes. Nicks infinitas. And yet, here we are in this life.”

Yeah, but one thing he’d never been able to figure out … “How do we know that this is the right existence? How do I know one of the other universes isn’t the one I should be living in?”

Thorn gave a low laugh. “How do we, indeed? That is the question. Who’s to say if this is the right life or not? And while I have an answer, you don’t need it, other than for me to mention that this is the only version of you and Ambrose that you know. In order to save you, Ambrose has bent the fabric that none of us are allowed to touch. He has breached this existence and is trying to gain access to the outcome that was achieved in an alternate universe and by another Nick, and make it happen here. The problem with that is—”

“You can’t have the same outcome in two different dimensions.”

“Exactly. Each one must play out as a different dance. In quantum mechanics, it’s termed the uncertainty Principle, which says that the more you know about the position of one matter, the less you can control, determine, or know about the momentum of the other. When Ambrose came back and began interfering with the timeline of this universe, he created a buckle or bridge between the planes of existence. Things are now coming into this universe that weren’t here before. Things he can neither control, nor see the potential problems it’ll cause you both down the road. You see what I’m saying?”

“Yeah, by trying to help me, Ambrose screwed us over big time.”

Thorn gave him a sarcastic salute. “That’s a little harsh, but true. Now no one can predict what will happen to you. How this newest twist will unravel. But one thing you can bank on, you are the grand prize in a bloody contest. Whoever can bring you in to Noir will dominate this world and be rewarded greatly. Nick, my boy, to the preternatural creatures of this universe, you’re infamous, and there’s a bounty on your head that’s staggering. Hell, you’re lucky I’m not turning you in.”

The way Thorn said that, it made Nick wonder if one day Thorn might not change his mind and hand him over.

Kody stood up as Dr. Burdette came out with Nick’s attending physician to speak to his mother.

Her eyes swimming in tears, Cherise went over to them. Kody followed with Caleb until they stood behind her and Menyara. The others stayed back, giving Cherise room.

“Will he live?” Cherise’s voice shook.

Dr. Burdette pulled her into a tight hug. “Sugar? Didn’t I tell you we weren’t going to let that baby die? We have him stabilized and he’s resting.”

Cherise’s blue eyes widened. “That sounds like there’s a ‘but’ in there.”

It was the male doctor who answered. “There is. He’s in a coma and we’re not sure why.”

Frowning, Cherise reached out for the support of Menyara before turning her attention back to the doctor. “I don’t understand. What do you mean?”

The doctor sighed. “He has no reason to be in a coma. His injuries weren’t that extreme. Don’t get me wrong, they are bad, but not life-threatening. Not to mention there’s a lot of brain activity going on that we can’t explain. It’s like he’s not really in a coma … that on some level he’s highly alert, but nothing we do can revive him.… I’ve never seen anything like this.”

Kody exchanged a nervous glance with Caleb. “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” she whispered.

“Yeah. Nick’s somewhere he doesn’t need to be.”

“If it’s where I’m thinking, I can’t go.”

Caleb growled low in his throat. “Yeah, that would wreck my sucky day even worse than what I’m about to go do.” He winked at her before he headed out the door.

Dr. Burdette squeezed Cherise tight. “I can’t imagine he won’t come out of it in a day or two, honey. He will be fine, Cherise. You’ll see.”

Cherise drew a ragged breath. “I have told him so many times not to fight. Why couldn’t he, for once, just listen to me and do what I say? Why didn’t he give over his wallet and—”

“He didn’t fight his attacker,” Kody interjected, wanting to protect Nick any way she could.

Even from his own mother.

Cherise frowned at her. “What?”

“That was the only thing he’d say until he passed out. He wanted me to make sure you understood that he’d done what you asked and hadn’t fought back when he was attacked.”

“She’s right,” the doctor concurred. “All of his wounds were defensive, and not a single mark on him says he fought back in any way. From the looks of his injuries, I’d say he was on the ground in a fetal position, covering his head with his arms the entire time he was being beaten.”

Cherise sobbed even harder. “So I’m the one who got him hurt like this.…” Tears rolled down her cheeks. “Oh God, what have I done?”

Kody rubbed her back. “He just wants to please you, Mrs. Gautier. He’d eat broken glass for breakfast if you asked him to.”

But the self-loathing and torment in her blue eyes said that she wasn’t going to forgive herself anytime soon. “Can I see him?” she asked his doctor.

“Sure.” Dr. Burdette led her to the back while Kody closed her eyes and tried to sense Caleb’s location. He was completely gone from this plane of existence.

If he had descended into the Nether Realm to find Nick, it wouldn’t be fun for him. Unlike her, he’d known the horrors of that place firsthand. What little she knew about it had come from others.

You’re too close to the Malachai, Nekoda. You’re losing your objectivity.

She knew that deep masculine voice inside her head. It came from Sraosha. His title was her guardian, but in truth, he was more like a warden who reported her every move to their superiors. I’ve lost nothing.

He grumbled, but didn’t speak again. She knew what he and the others thought of her. That she should kill Nick and move on to the next Malachai.

But her brother had promised her that within the balance that had allowed one of the Sephirii to turn against his own and bring them down, the Malachai could do the same. A Malachai would be born with equal balanced parts inside him—just like Jared had been, and that that one special beast could be turned to their side and used against Noir and his sisters.

Nick was the only one, in all these centuries, who’d been born with that unique criteria. And there would never be another. He was their one and only hope.

If she and Caleb could turn him, they could stop Noir. Without his Malachai, he would be controllable.

Forever.

However, Sraosha and the others were correct. If they failed to kill Nick before he came into all of his powers, because of that mixed blood he would be the only Malachai who could destroy all of them. He would truly be invincible.

And they would all be dead or imprisoned.

We are not assassins, she reminded Sraosha in her head. Especially not of children.

He’s not a child, Belam. You know that. He is the deadliest creature ever born. For now he’s weak, but every day, he grows stronger. Deadlier. Meanwhile, you’re growing weaker where he’s concerned.

I’m not weak. She had never been weak. Don’t mistake my mercy for weakness. I assure you, if I know he is lost to us, I will cut his throat myself and deliver his heart to all of you. Because if she didn’t, he would destroy everyone she loved.

The only problem was, he was fast becoming one of the people she loved most.

You will do your duty. Sraosha pulled back from her.

Yes, she would do her duty, and she would keep her promise to her brother.

Even if it killed her.

And especially if it meant killing Nick.