Infamous

CHAPTER 4

Nick jumped up and fumbled for his phone. He had to get ahold of Brynna before she let her hurt feelings overtake her common sense. Life was hard for everyone, but pain was transitory and it would eventually leave. He knew that better than most since he’d been spoon-fed a steady diet of shame, humiliation and agony since the moment of his birth.

Death was forever. There was no undo button on it. Not unless you knew how to summon Artemis, and even then, there was no guarantee she’d take you.

His hand shaking from his panic, he dialed Brynna’s number and waited.

She didn’t answer.

As he was hanging up, his mom returned with a hamburger and fries. Her brows drew together in a worried frown. “What’s wrong?”

“Ma-m-mom, I got to go.”

The fury returned to make her eyes snap blue fire at him. “Sit your butt down, boy. You’re on restriction.”

“I know. But—”

“No buts,” she snapped. “Sit down and do your homework. Now!”

He shook his head. “You’re going to have to ground me again. I’ve got to go check on Brynna. I got a really bad feeling, and she’s not answering her phone. I have to make sure she’s okay.”

She took a step back and eyed him suspiciously. “Is that really what you’re doing?”

“Cross my heart, Mom.” He made a small cross in the center of his chest. Something he only did when he meant it.

“All right. Go on and check on her, then. I won’t hold that against you. You want to take the burger with you?”

Nick grabbed it from her tray, then kissed her cheek. “Can I leave my books here? I’ll be back as soon as I make sure she’s not doing something stupid.”

“Sure.”

Taking a bite of his burger, he headed for the door.

“Hey, Nick?”

He paused to look back at his mother and swallowed his food. “Yes, ma’am?”

“You’re a great kid. Much better than I deserve. I just wanted you to know that while I’m hard on you, I do see how wonderful you are. You do me real proud and I mean that.”

Her words warmed him. “Thanks, Ma. I love you, too.” Smiling at her, he rushed out to get to the streetcar so that he could bust tail to make it to Brynna’s house as fast as possible. This would be so much easier if I had a car.…

Or if Ambrose or Death would teach him how to teleport. Now there was a power he’d love to have. Of course with his luck, he’d teleport someplace bad like the Arctic Circle while in his underwear.

Or buck naked into his school’s gym during a pep rally. Yeah, that’d be a lot worse than freezing his nether regions on an iceberg. He’d much rather have penguins point and laugh at him than the girls in his class.

He came around the corner of the French Market at a dead run. For once luck was with him. The streetcar came in right as he reached the platform.

And he made the best time ever getting to Brynna’s house. A huge, dark gray antebellum mansion, it dwarfed his entire apartment building. Even though it made him uncomfortable to be around a place this nice and elegant, he’d always liked coming here. Whenever Brynna’s mom was in town, she usually had fresh cookies or cupcakes sitting in a glass case on their kitchen island. And her dad had never once looked at him as if he was trash or made a comment over the fact that Nick didn’t belong around his daughter. All of the Addamses were as nice as they could be. Something he deeply appreciated.

Nick opened the wrought-iron gate and sprinted across the small front yard and up the steps to the front door. He rang the bell.

A few seconds later, Brynna’s little brother, Jack, opened the door and stared up at him. “Yeah?”

“Is Brynna home?”

Jack shrugged. “Don’t know. Don’t care.”

I am so glad I’m an only child.… Nick sighed and tried again. “Is your dad around?”

“He’s running errands. Be back later.”

“Can I come in and see if Brynna’s in her room?”

Jack narrowed his gaze on Nick. “Ain’t no boy not related to us supposed to be up in her room. Ever.”

“I won’t go in it. You can come with me and make sure I stay in the hallway. Please? I won’t be here long. I just want to make sure she’s all right.”

“Yeah, okay. I heard her crying earlier. Figured it was something stupid. She cries all the time, anyway. When she’s happy. When she’s mad. When she’s sad. Whenever she breaks a nail or has to take medicine. Girls are so weird. I try not to pay attention to them.” Jack stepped back so that Nick could enter the house.

Nick headed for the stairs. “Where’s her room?”

“First one on the left.” But Jack didn’t follow him up. Instead, he drifted past the stairs, toward their kitchen.

Taking the stairs two at a time, Nick didn’t pause until he got to her door. Please be okay. Please … Terrified of what he might find, he knocked. “Hey, Bryn? It’s me, Nick. You in there?”

“Go away.” There was no missing the tears in her voice.

“I can’t. Not until I know you’re all right.” Nick leaned his head against the white wood and wished he could make it better for her. He hated for anyone to be this torn up, and for what? Meanness? Jealousy? Really? Why would anyone with a soul do this to someone else? Could they truly feel satisfaction or derive happiness from stabbing someone else so ferociously?

“I know you’re hurting, Bryn. Believe me, I know how it feels to get your emotional teeth kicked down your throat so far that it makes you choke on the last shred of your dignity. I do. Just when you think you can hold your head up and everything will be okay, in walks your mom with this tacky, awful bright orange fish shirt that she makes you wear to school so that everyone can poke fun at it and call you names. That sick feeling in your gut that tells you, you can’t take it anymore. That life sucks hard and it won’t ever get better. That you’re walking on the tightrope, trying to hang on with your toes ’cause you got no safety net, and you’re barely one sneeze away from being a stain on the floor. But you’re not alone, Brynna. You’re not. You’ve got a lot of people who care about you. People who love you and who would be devastated if something ever happened to you.”

She opened the door. Her dark hair was rumpled and her eyes bloodshot and swollen. With her mascara smeared around her eyes and down her cheeks, she looked so miserable that it wrung his heart. “I’m not as strong as you are, Nick.”

“No. You’re stronger than me.”

Shaking her head, she hiccupped.

Nick wiped at the tears on her face. “You know, I was having this really crappy day a couple of years ago. It was so bad that I honestly thought about throwing myself off the Pontchartrain bridge. I was so sick of being kicked and mocked for things I couldn’t help or change. Told how worthless and disgusting I was. How stupid and trashy. And as I sat in the cafeteria at a table by myself because I was a social outcast and didn’t have enough money for lunch, this beautiful girl came over and sat down beside me. She split her turkey sandwich and homemade cookies with me and bought me a bag of chips and a milk. Do you remember what she said to me?”

Tears flowed down her face. “No.”

“‘No one can make you feel inferior without your permission.’”

“Eleanor Roosevelt.”

Nick nodded. “You said to me, ‘Don’t let them hurt you, Nick. One of you is worth ten of them. And one day, we’re going to be grown and everything will be different. They’ll matter even less to you then than they do now. So don’t even waste a single thought on them and their cruelty. Besides, they wouldn’t be attacking you if they didn’t think of you as a threat to them. People only go after the ones they’re jealous of or scared of.’ And I asked you that day why anyone would ever be jealous of something like me.”

Brynna sniffed. “Because there’s a light inside you that shines so bright it’s hard to look at. You are kind and funny, and you’re the smartest boy I’ve ever met. Most of all, you see potential and opportunity where others see obstacles.”

“Yeah,” Nick said, his throat tight as he remembered all the times when all he’d needed was a kind smile from someone. Anyone. And Brynna had been that one person that day when he’d felt battered beyond his endurance. “Those words etched themselves into my soul, and I think about them a lot when Stone and them get started on me. While other people have kicked me, coming and going, you never did. You are an angel, Brynna. Don’t let the haters win. They wouldn’t have attacked you had they not felt inferior to you. So you hold your head up and you dare them to come after you. And know that when you do, you’re not facing them alone. You’ve got me, LaShonda, Kody, and dozens of other people who will take on the devil himself for you.”

She threw herself into his arms and sobbed against his neck. “I love you, Nick. You’ve always been such a good friend to me.”

Patting her on the back, he knew she meant that the same way he did. As friends. “I love you, too. Now if we want to be really evil, let’s sic Tad on them.”

She laughed at the mention of her older brother, who’d graduated early and gone on to college up in Baton Rouge. “He would beat them senseless, wouldn’t he?”

“You know it, and he’s the one person outside of Bubba and Mark who could track them down and then some.”

“Hey, Brynna? You here?”

Wiping at the tears on her cheeks, she drew a ragged breath. “Up here, Daddy.”

Nick put a little distance between them as her father climbed the stairs. When he reached the landing and caught sight of Nick outside Brynna’s bedroom, he stopped dead in his tracks.

Now Nick had always known that Mr. Addams was a large man, and by large he meant really tall and muscular. But right now with that furious glower on his face, Nick could swear that her father grew about nine inches taller and his muscles expanded to the size of Rambo’s. And he was pretty sure that crazy light in her father’s eyes came from an image of him gutting Nick where he stood.

Holding his hands up in surrender, Nick took another step away from her. “I did not step one foot inside her room, sir. I swear it on my mother’s life. We’ve been out here the whole time.”

Brynna wiped at her nose. “I had a really bad day at school, Daddy, and Nick came by to check on me and cheer me up.”

Relaxing, her father closed the distance between them. “I got a call about it from Mr. Head. It’s why I came on home.”

Nick edged himself closer to the stairs. “And now that I know you’re not alone, Bryn, I’m going to head back home. If you need anything at all or someone to talk to, any time day or night, call me.”

Brynna frowned. “Did you really come all this way just to check on me?”

Nick shrugged sheepishly. “I don’t know anyone else who lives out this way.”

Her smile warmed him. “Thank you so much, Nick.”

“No problem.” He inclined his head to her before he went to the stairs.

Mr. Addams followed him down to let him out the door.

Nick paused in the foyer and looked up to make sure Brynna wasn’t on the landing before he spoke to her father. “Mr. Addams, I don’t know what the principal told you, but I am seriously worried about Brynna. I was in the class that saw … those lies about her, and it was pretty gruesome what they did. And I know how mean some of the kids at school can be. You might want to keep her home a few days and watch over her. Please make sure she’s not left alone. I know her mom’s in Seattle and girls like to talk to girls. If she needs someone, I can volunteer my mom. She had a bad situation in high school, too. And she survived it. I know she thinks the world of Brynna and would be more than happy to help her anyway she can. She’s working tonight at Sanctuary, but she’ll be home all day tomorrow.”

Her father smiled at him. “Thanks, Nick. I really appreciate it.”

Nodding, Nick left. But he didn’t go too far. He stopped by the fountain that they had in the middle of the yard and stared into the water. It took a few minutes for his powers to kick in. When they did, he saw Brynna still crying in her room as she hugged one of the stuffed animals she kept on her bed. He saw her upset and angry. However, the image of her killing herself was gone.

Breathing in relief, he headed back to the streetcar while his thoughts ran through everything that had happened.

Caleb had assured him that this perverse maliciousness was human-spawned, but he couldn’t shake the feeling that something else was behind it. It just didn’t feel right. Yeah, people were cruel. They were nasty. He’d seen the worst of humanity. Had looked into the eyes of a friend as that friend beat him to the brink of death and then ruthlessly shot him on the street.

More times than he could count, Nick had sneered at the hypocrites around him and bathed in their condemnation.

Still …

He heard something whispering in his ear in a language he couldn’t understand.

Nick froze as he tried to comprehend it. Was it the voice of the ether spirits that Caleb listened to? The ones who carried information and wisdom?

Ambrose had told him that he would one day be able to access the universe—see all things hidden. Know the unknowable. It’d sounded far-fetched, but the one thing he’d learned over these last few months was that absurdity was the true natural order. Trying to find sense in the world was like trying to unlock the key to the universe using a Tinkertoy.

In a way, he missed living in ignorance. Those days of supreme comfort he’d had back when the world had made sense, and any problem he had could be cured by his mother pulling him into her lap and kissing his boo-boos. Back then, he’d dreamed of being a teenager. He’d told himself that once he had a job, he’d be a man.

But he didn’t feel like a man.

Well, some days he did. Some days, he felt as ancient as Acheron, who was over eleven thousand years old. Other times, he still wanted to run to his mom and have her make it all better.

He was at such a strange time in his life. Caught between childhood and being his own man. His mom had leaned on him so hard at times that he felt like he was the parent. Like they’d raised each other.

And at the same time, he couldn’t imagine being his age and having a toddler to take care of. It was a wonder his mom was sane. Not to mention the fact that he’d been a sick little kid. For the first two years of his life, he’d been in and out of hospitals for all kinds of weird things.

Because you were demonkyn. He knew that now. His human part had been fighting his father’s DNA. And the demon in him had been trying to kill the human half.

How had his mother met such a creature as his father? It was something she refused to talk about. Nor would she speak ill of him.

For better or worse, he is your father, Nick. Family is family, no matter what.

And his mother was whacked for that thought. He’d only met his father a couple of times in his life, during visitations at the prison. His only real memory of the man had come from when he was ten and his father had lived with them for three whole months after someone had been dumb enough to parole him.

Like some bad Hollywood cliché, his father had laid up drunk and knocked them around until one of his former inmate buddies had convinced him to rob a bank. During the robbery, his father had brutally slaughtered four people he claimed were demons trying to kill him. At the time that’d seemed stupid.

Now, not so much. It probably had been demons out to get him.

Instead of going for an insanity defense or fighting the conviction, his father had pled guilty and been sent right back to Angola. About a year later, just shy of Nick’s eleventh birthday, there had been a huge riot where his father had been wounded. He’d also killed a guard. Something that guaranteed he’d never be paroled again.

Let’s hear it for family.

But Nick didn’t believe blood ties created family, or that his father’s whacked out DNA had to define the person he was to become. In his world, family was something you chose to have. It was the people you loved who loved you back—those you could call in the middle of the night who would rush to your side without complaint. They were the only ones who mattered. The ones who counted. As far as he was concerned, his family was his mom, Menyara, Kyrian, Rosa, Liza, Bubba, and Mark. And Acheron was the weird uncle no one was sure about. Caleb was that acerbic cousin you liked, but you didn’t know why.

And Kody lived in a place in his heart that was uniquely hers.

Maybe he felt that way because, other than his mother, he’d never really known blood kin. He’d never once met his grandparents. The closest he’d come to that was seeing them in passing at the mall during Christmas years ago. His mom had ducked into a store and Menyara had told him who they were, and why his mother was so upset, and didn’t want to be seen. Now, he couldn’t even remember what they’d looked like. He wouldn’t know them if they stepped on him.

“Nick?”

He paused on his way back to the streetcar as he heard his name, but couldn’t place the voice. Turning around, he didn’t see anyone near him.

Just don’t be more mortent demons out to attack me while I’m alone. Caleb would kill him for being so stupid.

“Nick!” A car moved and then he saw Jill running toward him, waving.

What was it about Jill that made him so uncomfortable? And it wasn’t the same kind of nervousness he had with Kody. He was twitchy with Kody because when she was around all he could think about was how good her lips tasted. And his body would go white-hot with horomonal overload until he could barely think of anything else.

He wasn’t attracted to Jill at all. So what about her was fueling his aversion?

Give her a chance, Nick. She’d been nervous on her first day … Just like you’d been.

True. Not to mention, he’d had more than his share of off days since then. He shouldn’t hold one of hers against her.

“Hey, Jill,” he said as she stopped in front of him.

She grinned broadly. “I didn’t know you lived out this way.”

“I don’t. I came by to see Brynna.”

Her face blanched. “The girl who made all those awful photos with animals?”

“No,” he snapped. “The girl someone lied about. Those pictures were doctored.”

She actually got huffy with him. “That’s not what I heard about her.”

Keep talking, babe, and you’re really going to alienate me. And seriously tick him off. “Yeah, well, you’re hearing it now. I was there and can tell you that they were forged. It was obvious. Brynna has never done anything like that, and wouldn’t.”

She smiled. “If you say so. I don’t know her well enough to comment.”

“Then you don’t know her well enough to carry a rumor that is completely untrue.”

Jill went silent for a few seconds. “That’s a really good point. I never thought of it that way.”

“Yeah, well, I don’t like gossip.” He’d had too much of it spread about him and his mom. “As my mother always says, great minds discuss ideas. Average minds discuss events. Small minds discuss people. And life’s too short to worry about what other people do or don’t do. Tend your own backyard, not theirs, because yours is the one you have to live in.”

“Wow, that’s deep. Are you, like, one of the scholarship kids?”

He hated that question. In theory, scoring high enough to get a scholarship should be a mark of honor. But somehow it’d been twisted around by his classmates to mean that anyone who had a scholarship couldn’t afford to go to school at St. Richards and had no business there because they weren’t worthy.

“Yeah, I’m one of the scholarship kids.”

“That’s so cool. Me and my brother got in last year, but we weren’t able to get one of the scholarships. We tried twice, though.”

Now he felt awful. “I’m sorry, Jill.”

Her smile returned. “It’s okay. The church was real good to us. They were taking up a collection to help my parents with tuition when this really nice old couple volunteered to sponsor us. They’re paying for everything … right down to the pens and book bags. They even took us shopping to get new school clothes.”

“That’s decent of them. They must be really great people.” His mom would never have allowed someone else to pay for Nick’s school, never mind his clothes. She was fierce in her beliefs that you take nothing from no one. What you had, you earned, or you did without until you could afford it.

No one owes you a living, Nick, and they definitely don’t owe you respect. Just because they have excess doesn’t mean we’re entitled to it. Life isn’t about what you can take from someone. It’s about what you can earn.

As Kyrian would say, he who dies with the most toys wins and the spoils always go to the victor. So win big.

But then his mom was also the first one to donate to charity any time the nuns called for toys or food or such for the underprivileged. He’d never quite understood that, especially since most of those “underprivileged” people were a lot better off than they were. However, he had too deep a sense of self-preservation to ask her about the dichotomy in her rationale. She could get real testy if she thought someone was calling her a hypocrite.

“They are the best,” Jill continued. “Mr. Gautier is a banker and Mrs. Gautier’s a lawyer with an office downtown. You don’t know them, do you? I was wondering since you had the same last name and all.”

“I don’t. But then Gautier and its variants are fairly common in Louisiana and southern Mississippi. There are four other kids at St. Richards with the same last name. I guess if you go far enough back, we’re all related, but I don’t have any living relatives that I know of.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, my parents are both only children.” Something he’d learned from Ambrose after he’d confessed that he wasn’t really Nick’s uncle. Ambrose didn’t want anyone else stepping forward and claiming to be a long-lost relative of Adarian’s. The last thing he wanted was for Nick to put his trust into the wrong person.

“That’s so sad. I’ve got almost two dozen cousins and a little sister in addition to my brother Joey. What about your grandparents? Surely they weren’t only children, too.”

“I don’t know anything about my grandparents. My dad’s parents died a long time before I was born and my mother never talks about hers.”

“I’m sorry, Nick.”

He shrugged nonchalantly. “Nothing to be sorry about. It just is. You can’t miss what you don’t know.”

She smiled again. “I like talking to you. You’re really smart and you have a great way of looking at things. It’s unique and makes me think.”

Every warning bell he possessed rang out. Flattery and insults both brought out the same reaction in him—What do you want? In his experience the people who flattered him to his face were the first ones who stabbed him whenever he turned his back. He hated it. Maybe he was judging her wrongly, but he’d been burned enough to be very wary of people’s motives.

He heard the sound of the arms about to lower over the street. “My streetcar’s coming. I need to get back to the Quarter.”

“Oh, okay. It was good talking to you. I’ll see you in school tomorrow.”

“Yeah. Later.” Nick ran to the platform, grateful to have an excuse to get away from Jill. He had no idea why she bothered him so, but …

He didn’t trust her and he didn’t believe in wasting time around people he didn’t trust. While they might be all right, it wasn’t worth the gamble. He’d rather be doing his homework, which said it all.

It didn’t take that long to get back to Sanctuary. His mom was busy with customers so he headed straight to his corner booth and resumed pulling his books out.

A few minutes later, he was tugging at his hair as he tried to understand his chemistry assignment when something white appeared next to him. Arching a brow, he looked over to see a double fudge sundae.

His jaw dropped as he looked past the three cherries to see his mom smiling at him. “Should I be scared? I get a burger and a sundae, and it’s not my birthday? Who are you, strange woman, and what have you done with my mother?”

Laughing, she rolled her eyes—something that would have gotten him grounded for a week. “Mr. Addams called me and told me what you did for Brynna. I don’t have any hero cookies, so you get a hero sundae instead.” She added whipped cream to the top, then set the bottle down next to him. “I love you, Nick.”

“Ditto.” He grabbed the spoon and dug in before she changed her mind or he did something else that got him into trouble and made her take it back.

With a shake of her head, his mom started away, then stopped to frown.

Nick glanced up, and did a double take as he saw Kody a few steps away. His mom didn’t look as pleased to see her as he was.

“Hi, Mrs. Gautier,” Kody said with a genuine smile. “Um, this isn’t a date, and I know Nick’s on restriction. Nick had no idea I was coming, but I knew he was here, and I wanted to ask him about the algebra homework we have. That is, if it’s okay with you?”

His mom relaxed. “I’m sorry, sweetie, you didn’t have to explain. I wasn’t frowning at you. I just … ever have a weird déjà vu moment? When I saw you in the light … it was so strange. Like I’d seen you before, but you weren’t you. Anyway, I’m being silly and it’s nothing against you. You want me to bring you something?”

Kody looked past his mom, to his sundae. “Any chance you might share that?”

“Only with you.”

She met his mother’s gaze. “May I have another spoon?”

His mom pulled one out of her apron pocket. “I’ll grab you some milk and water to drink, too.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Gautier.”

Kody sat down next to him while his mother headed toward the bar. She kissed his cheek before taking a bite of his sundae. Ah, the sneaky woman. She knew that little peck bought her instant distraction and guaranteed her that he would be incapable of speech for the next few minutes.

“Mark can’t find squat on who registered the domain. Whoever it is went through a company and all that’s showing up is that company’s information. Worse,the company is based in Canada.”

Which meant, with Mark’s luck, if he hacked it, it would cause an international war. “That sucks.”

“That’s what Madaug said. Still, Mark said he could and would eventually hack it, but it might take a few days. After you left, we got on the site and…” She closed her eyes and winced.

“What?”

“It’s awful, Nick. The site is mostly lists. Most stuck-up. Most obnoxious. Most likely to run an old lady over. Ugliest, et cetera.” She took another bite before she continued. “It also has personal information posted like who’s gay. Who was caught mooning the crowd or flashing themselves at Mardi Gras. Who’s a virgin. Who’s slept with the most people. Those who have been treated for eating disorders and drug addictions, or STDs. Students who are cutters and alcoholics.” She hesitated before she added, “Who’s been arrested.”

Nick went cold. “Am I on it?”

She hesitated before she spoke. “Did you really shoplift?”

Righteous indignation and anger burned through him. “No! I had a sucker in my pocket when I went in and the store owner didn’t believe me. He called the cops, saying I’d stolen it from his store. But I didn’t. I swear it. My teacher had given it to me for scoring highest on a class test.”

She put a comforting hand on his arm. “I believe you, Nick. I do. It also lists what everyone’s parents do for a living. Whose parents are alcoholics or drug addicts.”

So much for the sundae. He no longer had any kind of appetite. He could hear the implication in her tone.

The students whose parents had been to jail, or in his case, had taken up permanent residency there.

“It tells everyone my dad’s a felon, doesn’t it?”

She nodded. “And it still lists your mom as a stripper.”

In that moment, he fully understood his father’s need to kill people ‘cause if he could be locked in a room for five seconds with the person behind this, he’d tear their head off, and laugh like a loon while he did it “Anything else about me?”

“They claim you cheated on your entrance exam, and that the only reason you weren’t thrown out for it is because your mother traded favors to the administrator to keep him from turning you in.”

Fury tore through him. “I swear, I’ll—”

Kody placed her finger over his lips to keep him from ranting. “Madaug is hacking into the site even as we speak to delete it all. For everyone.”

That helped, but it didn’t change one thing. “Yeah, but how many people have seen it?”

“Do you really care?”

He wanted to lie and say no, but he thought too much of her to do that. “Yes, Kody. I do care. There are some things that you just don’t want other people to know about you. Things that they don’t need to know. I would think if anyone should understand that, it’s you. Case in point, even after a year, I don’t know who or what you really are. Your real age. Anything. Who are your parents? Did the site say anything about you at all?”

She scoffed. “I’m on the most obnoxious list, worst dressed, and the she-enhances-her-attributes list. The parent thing is only what I have listed on my school record. It says my father’s a judge and my mother an accountant.”

“Is that true?”

“Depends on the definition you use.”

Nick snorted. “You’re never going to tell me anything about you, are you?”

Sadness furrowed her brow. “I hope I never have to tell you.”

There was a note of foreboding if he ever heard one. What was she? Another angel of death like Grim? Or something a lot worse?

Was there anything worse than Grim?

He really hoped not. “Will you at least tell me if you’re a demon?”

She swallowed her bite of sundae. “Definitely not a demon. You’d be able to see my real form if I were.”

That was news to him. “Really?”

“Really. The perspicacity you developed is honed enough that you will always see a demon no matter the form it’s taking. It might only be a flash that lasts no longer than a single heartbeat, but they can’t hide from you. Unless … they’re possessing someone.”

Possession was never a good thing. “I don’t understand.”

“Demons have two very scary cloaking powers. The mid and upper-level ones can assume any disguise they want. Kind of like Caleb appears to everyone as a teenager while he’s really thousands of years old.”

Yeah, Nick had seen his real form and he was …

U-g-l-y. But scary enough to run Freddy Krueger out of the dream realm.

Kody continued her explanation. “The lower demons and those who haven’t mastered their powers yet can take possession of someone. That takes a lot less energy and talent.”

“Really? I would have thought that was harder.”

“Some people are remarkably weak-willed and make very easy targets for all creatures. The best protection? Know yourself and have your own thoughts, right or wrong. Never let someone else think for you or you’ll find yourself a sheep in the slaughter mill.”

Nick forced himself to smile and act naturally as his mom returned with Nekoda’s milk and water. He waited for her to dash over to a table before he resumed their conversation.

“Like in The Exorcist?”

“Yes. The human has to do something that opens a conduit for the demon. Usually the demon uses a power called silkspeech or influence to get their target to do something they shouldn’t. The moment the doorway’s opened, the demon slips in and takes control of their body. The human has no idea they’re even possessed.”

He knew this scenario a little better than he wanted to. “They become Madaug’s zombies.”

“Pretty much, but they don’t have a bokor or outside master controlling them. The demon can only control them so long as it’s inside their body. That’s why you won’t be able to detect them.”

“Ever?”

“Depends. The Malachai has some exceptional abilities. So normally I’d say never. In your case … who knows? I wouldn’t put any ability past your father, and you have the potential to be even more powerful than he is.”

“How so?” Nick asked.

“Honestly, we’re not sure. It’s one of those things where we can see into the future, but you have some very distinct and exceptionally diverse paths you could follow and until you choose, we don’t really know what will happen to you, or what you’ll do.”

Nick frowned at that. “We? Who’s the rest of the group?”

“Speaking in the royal sense of the word.”

Uh-huh. Nick wasn’t so sure she was being honest about that. He was dying to know who ‘they’ were, but he’d been around Kody long enough to know she wouldn’t divulge anything.

“But we can alter my future, right?”

“That’s the plan,” she said wistfully. “If you give in to the demon side of yourself, you will destroy everyone around you. You won’t be capable of love or compassion.” Her words sent a shiver down his spine as he remembered the way Ambrose had attacked him. She was right. The last thing he wanted was to become that version of his future.

“What mangy, nasty rat died on top of your head, and why would you keep it there?”

Nick frowned at the angry tone from two booths over. He looked up to see Wren, one of the busboys, trying to clean an unoccupied table that was filled with dishes, while a man with a small group in the booth next to it harassed him. Tall and lean with blond dreadlocks that fell over his face, obscuring most of his features, and all of his turquoise eyes, Wren didn’t appear much older than Nick. Extremely antisocial- as in Wren took it to a whole new level uniquely his own- he seldom spoke to anyone. Rather, he functioned like a ghost, moving ninja-style through the restaurant and doing his job without comment or complaint.

What the moron antagonizing him didn’t know was that Wren was a tigard. Half white tiger and half snow leopard. And like a mighty shinobi, he could strike fast and hard with very lethal accuracy.

Nick held his breath for the bloodshed he was sure was imminent.

“Hey, freak! I’m talking to you,” the customer in the booth behind Wren called out. The man looked to be in his early twenties and beefy enough to back his animosity. If Wren were human. “Are you deaf as well as dumb and grungy?”

His cronies in the booth with him laughed while Wren ignored them. Without so much as twitching an eyebrow, he pulled the empty glasses into his plastic tub and stacked up the small plates.

“Ted,” the overly siliconed woman beside him whimpered in a strident, nasal tone that begged for her to take lessons from Wren’s silence, “have mercy on the poor retard. He is just a busboy, after all. It’s actually nice of them to hire someone who is obviously mentally defective. Everyone should hire the handicapped.”

Nick looked around for his mom who would take the woman’s head off for saying that. He’d been smacked in the back his head by her enough to know better than to say something so vicious. Those lightning fast, out of the blue head whacks also explained a lot of his own mental damage.

“Yeah,” Ted snarled in response, “but that hair is stinking up the place and I’m trying to eat here.” He lobbed a ketchup soaked french fry at Wren. It landed on his white uniform sleeve and slid down it, leaving a long red stain.

Wren went ramrod stiff.

In that moment, Nick saw the tigard in Wren. The way he held himself low and rigid reminded Nick of a cat in the wild targeting its prey before striking.

The tiger lies low not from fear, but for aim.…

Wren blinked, then seemed to calm himself. He wiped down the table, picked up his tub, and moved on.

At least he tried to.

As he walked past the booth, the man shoved him. Wren stumbled and almost dropped the dishes. But at the last minute, true to his tigard genes, he caught his balance and kept the dishes from spilling out of his tub.

“That’s it, boy,” Ted sneered. “Run home to your mama.”

Wren met Nick’s gaze and the pain those words wrought infuriated him. He couldn’t stand to see anyone abused. It didn’t matter that he knew Wren could take care of himself. He wasn’t going to tolerate this and do nothing to stop it.

Climbing over Nekoda, he went to check on his friend. But no sooner had he stood up than the bully shoved Wren again.

Aw, buddy, it’s on … Nick pushed the man back toward his booth. “You need to sit down, shut-up and leave him alone.”

The man raked a sneer over him. “That’s some ego you got there, punk.” He laughed over his shoulder, at his friends. “You like a Chihuahua that thinks it’s a Doberman.” Facing Nick, he sobered and narrowed his eyes with deadly intent on Nick. “Now, you’re the one that needs to sit down and mind your own business before I shut your mouth for you.”

“Nick, let it go,” Kody said from behind him.

The man looked past Nick to where she sat in the booth. “Man, that’s one fine piece of—”

“You better lay off my girl and watch your language around her.”

The man laughed. “Punk, you’re toast. I know karate and am a third-degree black belt.” He punched at Nick.

Then Nick did what he did best.…