Invision Page 14

  Xev ran back to them. "Nick, we've got a huge problem."

  "Yeah. You could say that..."

  With a fierce growl, the demon his daughter had called Lucy landed on the ground in front of Nick and blasted him with his powers.

  The blow would have sent Nick careening, had his daughter not blocked it.

  Furious over her actions, the demon tucked his wings down before he assumed a human body. Tall and well-built, he was as fair as Simi's daughter had been dark. With bright green eyes and wavy blond hair, there was something strangely familiar about him. Yet Nick couldn't quite place him.

  He stalked toward them with a tic in his jaw that said he wanted to mop the alley with Nick's blood and use his eyes for a game of marbles.

  "That's not your father, Charity. You know that. It's another trick of the Malachai to weaken and divide us. Our fathers died together in battle. We were there and saw the Malachai drive his sword through him. I don't know who or what this prick is, but he's not Ambrose."

  Biting her lip, she shook her head. "Somehow it's him. I can feel it, Lus. His blood speaks to me."

  The tic picked up rhythm as he eyed Xev with venom. "Declare yourself."

  "A god suckled by Inari."

  "That explains the stench."

  "And yours?" Xev asked in a tone that was either really brave, or incredibly stupid.

  The demon snorted. "Charonte."

  "You're not just Charonte. There's something a lot more powerful in you. And it's not Kalosum blood."

  "Yours either.... Which is why you don't need to know anything about us." He glanced at Nick's daughter. "Cherry, we've got to go while we have an opening. Otherwise, we'll be trapped in the city without reinforcements."

  "Take Amara and the others and go. I'll be right behind you."

  "Cher--"

  She cut his words off by gently brushing her fingers against his lips. "Lucien, please. I have to pick up Annabelle, anyway. I'm not about to leave her behind. She'll need help to carry supplies."

  Nick saw the love and pain in Lucien's gaze as he debated what to do. "You don't delay. Understood?"

  "Understood."

  A long-legged beauty armed with a silver-tipped whip came forward to clap Lucien on his shoulder. There was something about her that reminded Nick of a blond version of Tabitha Devereaux--the lunatic vampire slayer who "helped" them out from time to time at home. Only thing missing was Tabby's zoo crew and her androgynous Ziggy Stardust boyfriend.

  "I'll stay with her, Lucy. You know I won't let anything happen to your girl."

  "Thanks, Marissa."

  Two men stepped forward. "Me and Drystan'll stay behind and pull point for them."

  Lucien handed his grenade holster to the dark-haired man who'd volunteered. "Pax, Val, and thanks."

  Securing the holster to his hips, Val inclined his head. "Pax tecum."

  Lucien gave a light, lingering kiss to Charity. "Don't break my heart. I've lost too much in this fight already to lose you, too." Then he and the others took flight.

  Nick passed a baffled stare to Xev. "I'm so lost."

  "Yeah ... And for what it's worth, Marissa is Kyrian's daughter."

  Eyes wide, Nick's jaw went slack. "Whaaat?!"

  She arched a teasing brow at him. "Don't you remember bouncing me on your knee, Uncle Nick? Teaching me how to burp my alphabet with chocolate milk while my mom and Rosa had fits? How to eat beignets without inhaling powdered sugar up my nose? Or the jitterbug and two-step, and sing 'Iko Iko,' and play the spoons and accordion? Any of that ring a bell?"

  Charity gaped. "Wait, wait, wait.... Are you kidding me? After the way he used to get on to me for belching at the table? Telling me it wasn't ladylike? And he taught you how to do it? That's so wrong!"

  Another shadow materialized beside Nick and sniffed at him. Cocking his head, he manifested from werewolf to a blond human. "He doesn't know any of us. He didn't even recognize your brothers, Rissa."

  Drystan grimaced. "That's just hurtful. And here I thought I was hard to forget. Not like you meet an addanc every day."

  "Ca c'est fou, mon nonc!"

  Nick gaped as Val said, "That's crazy, my uncle" in Cajun. It was obvious that before Ambrose had lost his mind, he'd been a major part of their lives.

  They weren't lying.

  This was his daughter.

  And these were the grown children of his friends.

  "Xev?" Nick turned to him as he struggled with it all. "What's happening?"

  "Jaden sent us too far into the future. And yet," he paused to let out a bitter laugh, "I think we were meant to be here. To meet them."

  "I don't understand..."

  Xev rubbed at his arm where his curse was hidden by his sleeve. "Yeah, I know. I'm having a hard time with this one myself."

  Nick pressed his hand to his forehead as he tried to comprehend why they were here. "I'm not the one who destroys the world?"

  Charity scowled at him. "No.... How can you not remember any of us?"

  "He's still in high school," Xev said quietly. "None of you have been born yet."

  Marissa passed a concerned look to Val. "That means our parents haven't met."

  He went pale. "Then why's he even here?"

  The werewolf let out a foul curse. "Don't you see? It's a trap! The Mavromino's behind this. By sending him here, it could jeopardize all our lives. Stop our parents from ever meeting ... us from being born! He's here to screw it all up. It would change everything. Alter history as we know it!"

  Nick held his hands up. "No. That's not why I'm here. I mean, yes, it is, but not to change your history. To protect your lives and mine. I came here to stop this"--he gestured at the debris--"from happening. I was told I did this. That I ended the world."

  "Who told you that?" Marissa scowled.

  "Ambrose."

  Charity arched her brow. "But you're Ambrose."

  "I know that."

  And then they stared at each other in mutual confusion. Until another thing hit Nick. "Wait a second ... All of you know me. Yet you don't seem to know my Sarru-Dara. Is it me, or is that weird?"

  Arching a brow, Val scowled. "What are you sniffing?" He jerked his chin at Xev. "That's not the Sarru-Dara."

  Nick exchanged a scoffing laugh with Xev.

  "Yes, I am," Xev said firmly. "I've been the Sarru-Dara since the very beginning. There's never been another."

  Marissa shook her head. "You're wrong. The demon Livia's the Sarru-Dara."

  Nick sobered instantly at what that would have to mean. "Uh, no, she isn't. I kicked her rotten butt out of our clubhouse the minute I took over."

  Xev held his hand up to stop them from commenting. "Wait. Who are the usumgallu right now in this time period?"

  Charity counted them off on her fingers. "Bane, Livia, Grim, Laguerre, Yrre, and Kessar."

  He cut a gimlet stare to Nick. "Don't you get it, kid? For her to have my position, I'd have to be dead or seriously incapacitated and if they'd succeeded in eliminating me, then they would've opened the Kiazazu--the gates to Azmodea. Noir and Azura are out. This is the end."

  "Yeah," Nick said, stretching the word out, "but we stopped them. I chose a different set of generals. You were there. You know I did."

  "Yes. But something else must have happened at a much later time." Xev gestured at Charity. "You said that Ambrose isn't your Malachai?"

  "Correct. Cyp--" Her words were cut off by a blast that struck her in the chest and knocked her backward, away from Nick.

  "No!" Nick shouted as she hit the ground, hard, and rolled to her side.

  The others scrambled to return fire as more demons flew in to engage them for a fight.

  Ignoring them, Nick ran to his daughter. He gently turned her over to find that she was covered in blood from the wound that had opened up most of her side.

  Her breathing ragged, she stared up at him with tears glistening in her pale eyes as her lips trembled from the pain of the gaping injury the demon had left h er with. "It's the Cyprian Malachai," she whispered.

  Nick tightened his arms around her. "Stay with me, Charity. I'll get you some help."

  No sooner had he spoken those words than he felt that horrible, familiar tugging sensation. He was under attack from another entity. An unseen force.

  Nick stood to confront it.

  But the moment he did, he was sucker-punched. Air violently left his lungs and everything went dark.

  CHAPTER 11

  Nick jolted as he slammed into the floor of Menyara's shop, facedown. What the heck? How had he come back home? They hadn't been ready yet. He had questions he still needed answered.

  "No!" He pushed himself up and looked around for the others, hoping that maybe they might have come with him.

  Kody rushed to his side. "Nick, what is it?"

  Xev fell to the floor, a few feet away.

  "Why did you bring us back?" he asked him.

  Shaking his head as he pushed himself into a seated position, Xev appeared as bewildered as Nick felt. "I didn't do this. I was in the middle of fighting and trying to help them."

  Frustrated and furious, Nick raked his hand through his hair as he tried to use powers he didn't have to get back there. "What about Charity? Will she be okay?"

  "I don't know." Xev rose and headed straight for Jaden. "What the hell is going on?" he snarled at him. "Did you do this to get back at us?"

  "What?"

  "Don't you dare, 'What, me?' like you don't know."

  If Jaden was feigning ignorance, the man or demon or whatever he was should win an Oscar for the performance. 'Cause he looked completely innocent and oblivious. "What did you see there? Did you find Ambrose?"

  "No." Xev gestured at Nick. "There's another Malachai who reigns after Ambrose. He's not the last one!"

  Utter silence rang out in the room.

  Caleb sat up slowly. "I beg your pardon? Are you on meth?"

  Xev turned slowly toward his brother. "You heard correctly. It's confirmed. I saw it myself. Nick saw it. Ambrose falls to another Malachai. And that Malachai is the one who opens the gate to Azmodea. Not Ambrose." He faced Kody. "But it doesn't mesh with your memories. At all."

  Nick's head pounded. Though whether it was from trying to sort this out or from the time travel or being slammed around on hard concrete repeatedly, he didn't know. "Could Kody be from an alternate future? Would that explain why she doesn't know about this other Malachai?"

  Jaden narrowed his gaze on them. "There's one way to find out for sure."

  Xev threw his hand up to his father to put an invisible wall between Jaden and Kody. "Don't you even! You take one step toward her and I'll rip out your heart."

  Jaden gave him a look that dared him to try it. One that said he'd feed Xev his own heart if he attempted it. "Don't you want an answer?" he asked bitterly.

  "Not at that cost."

  Kody bit her lip. "What's the cost?"

  Xev glanced at her over his shoulder. "A blood donation that would tie you to my father. Forever."

  "That doesn't seem so bad."

  "Noir and Azura would be able to use it to track Nick and you through him."

  "Oh."

  "Exactly. We can't afford to let them near either of you. Not until we know who the mother of his son is. It could be you or another--we were pulled back before we could ask that, or how this new Malachai comes into being." Xev moved toward Nick. "What did Charity say to you?"

  "Only the name of the Malachai. Cyprian."

  "Her brother?"

  Nick shrugged. "I assume. I mean, he would have to be, right? He has to be a son of my bloodline, too."

  Kody gaped at Nick and the disclosure they'd just blindsided her with. "Wait ... what? Back this up. Charity was your daughter?"

  Nick held his hands out in hopeless despair, not quite sure how to explain it to her without really making her mad. Not that he blamed her since he had no way of knowing when he'd fathered his children or with whom. "Believe me, no one's more shocked about this than me, especially given how a Malachai is supposed to be conceived. I can't imagine any circumstance where I'd hurt someone, especially a woman."

  "Unless he wasn't."

  They all scowled at Jaden.

  "Come again?" Xev approached his father slowly.

  Jaden pressed his fist to his lips. "C'mon, you two remember how Grim and Laguerre were cursed to become the sarru-namus and the sarratum-ippiru."

  "They might, but it was a few hundred thousand years before either Nick or I was born. So would you please explain for us?" Kody asked.

  Jaden let out a bitter laugh. "It's ironic really. I think it's why you can't kill Nick, little Kody. Even though you were ordered to. Even though you know it will ultimately cost you everything you'll ever have or love. You just can't. Because, over and over, no matter how hard the gods keep trying to come between you, the two of you find each other in spite of all obstacles."

  Kody's scowl matched Nick's. "Pardon?"

  Caleb sighed heavily. "He's right. Remember how I reacted the first time I saw your bow and realized you were the daughter of Bathymaas?"

  "Yeah?"

  "Kody?" Nick breathed as his head began to swim. He stumbled back away from her, and fell.

  "Nick? What's going on?"

  Something about Caleb's words had triggered a seizure in his brain. Worse? It'd snapped the Malachai fury and returned his powers with a vengeance.

  They were taking him over in a way they hadn't done since the early days of when they'd first become unlocked. And he was powerless against them.

  No longer in control. He felt his breathing turn frenetic as that familiar heat burned through him and his black wings snapped out of his spine. His vision darkened and his heartbeat pounded in his ears like a war drum. Fast. Furious. Thumping. Rolling, he came to his feet, head down to glare at his friends in the manner of a rabid dog trying to decide whose throat he was going to rip out first.

  Fangs filled his mouth and the blood craving whet his appetite ...

  Kody swallowed hard as she saw Nick's eyes change over. No longer blue, they were all demon black now. His skin changed to that deep bloodred that was marked by ancient black symbols so that it formed an elegant, swirling pattern all over his body. Strangely beautiful and at the same time, terrifying. Black lines cut across both of his eyes and down his cheeks into sharp points. And the same bloodred laced through his black hair, just as it did his eyes, until they glowed in the dim light.

  The Malachai was a creature of exquisite death.

  And when those blood-streaked eyes met hers, she trembled, but not in fear. Somehow she knew he wouldn't hurt her. Even though the Nick she knew had receded behind the monster in front of her, there was something about him that said she was safe.

  "Ambrose?"

  His black wings fluttered, stirring the air around them and sending dust and debris rattling.

  Jaden took a step toward her.

  Hissing, Nick grabbed her into a tight, protective embrace. He literally wrapped his entire body around her and lifted her from the floor. He held her cradled against his chest with an ease that was truly, truly terrifying. With his wings flapping in a slow, rhythmic arcing motion, they hovered in a far corner of the shop.

  Nick closed his eyes and pressed his cheek against the top of her head. He held her as if she were unspeakably precious. As if he'd lost her and had finally found her again. She had the impression that he wasn't going to allow anyone to come near her or remove her from his arms.

  And while he held her like that, she saw why ...

  They were no longer in New Orleans. Rather she was in an ancient Hurrian city, on top of a hill that overlooked the capital where people were in the process of rebuilding structures that had been damaged by a savage war. Even the temple where she stood hadn't been spared. The walls around her still bore the charred scarring of god-bolts and one of the pillars had yet to be replaced that had collapsed under a fierce assault.

  Obliviou s to it, she stood on the balcony with a Charonte demon who reminded her a great deal of a taller Simi, except her skin was a swirling prism of red and white. Dressed in black armor, she wore her ebony hair braided with red feathers and gold beads. She even had gold tips on the edge of her pointed, pixie ears.

  "I've a bad feeling, Rubati. You should do as Monakribos wants and run with him."

  "I'm not afraid, Xi. His mother will protect us. Braith won't allow her child to be harmed. It was the promise the other gods made to her and his father when Kissare gave up his life so that Monakribos could be born. They swore that they would never ask for her to sacrifice more of her blood to them." She cupped her stomach that was just beginning to show the signs of her pregnancy. "We're safe from their wrath."

  Suddenly, the sky grew dark overhead. Thunder clapped so hard, it shook the building around them.

  Rubati stumbled, then extended her white wings to catch her balance so that she wouldn't harm her unborn baby. "Are we at war again?"

  "I'm not sure, but I'm being summoned. You should hide!" Xiamara leapt from the balcony to fly down toward the city.

  Just as Rubati started to leave, she saw Monakribos come into the room, through the doors.

  Relief flooded her. "My love!" She rushed to him only to have him backhand her so hard that the blow lifted her from her feet and sent her skittering across the floor.

  Stunned senseless, she barely remained conscious as he seized her.

  He lifted her up in a cruel fist. "Damn you for what you've done!"

  She grabbed his hand in both of hers and tried to loosen his grip. "Kri? What's wrong with you?"

  But her words didn't seem to register as he set upon her with a warrior's vengeance.

  By the time the drug he'd been given cleared his blood and he came to his senses, it was too late.

  Rubati barely clung to life.

  Monakribos pulled back in horror as he took in the whole scene and saw what he'd done to the female he'd loved above all others. He saw his bloodstained hands and her battered body. "Ru?"

  Her breath rattled in her chest as she stared up at him, too weak and broken to move. Tears fell from the corners of her eyes, leaving streaks in the blood on her face. She swallowed hard before she spoke in the faintest of pain-filled whispers. "I was going to tell you about the baby I carry. But it's too late now. You've killed us both."

  With those words spoken, she expelled one final breath. And the light that had always shone so bright in her eyes, faded and left them glassy and hollow.