Invision Page 16

  Caleb laughed. "Cherise would kill you if she heard you say that about her."

  "Probably, but it's the truth."

  "You know the one thing it can't do, though, is lie."

  Nick turned back to Jaden. "Come again?"

  "I'm thinking ... Unlike a person, or a memory that can become distorted by time and emotions. It doesn't fabricate or lie. It never gets misled or misinterprets events. It always gives the cold, unvarnished truth. What you see is what happened or will come into being. Your little tirade on your mother is what made me think about that. Our memories are always faulty. They're tainted by our emotions and perceptions. We filter everything we take in by our experiences. I mean, you said yourself a few minutes ago. Did I say what you thought I did or did you hear what you wanted me to say? It doesn't make me a liar or you a fool. It's just human nature. People see what they want to see and they hear what they need or want to hear. The Eye doesn't do that."

  "Ambrose wanted you to know the truth, whatever it is." Kody met Nick's gaze. "I think someone other than Ambrose is tampering with the timeline."

  Caleb cursed. "That's what brought out our ugly friends. They were looking for whoever did it. And they thought it was Nick because of Ambrose."

  Kody nodded. "But while he did tamper with the time sequence, it wasn't egregious enough to warrant punishment."

  "They were after the real culprit, whoever it is."

  "Yeah." Covering her mouth with her hand, she looked as sick as Nick suddenly felt. "What are we dealing with?"

  "Same thing we've been dealing with. The end of the world. Only we no longer know how to stop it." Nick walked around the shattered remains of Menyara's store. "I mean, look at this place. If they could come in here and do this to Mennie ... how are we going to stop them?"

  Caleb glanced at Xev. "You're up."

  "Not me ... Kody."

  "I'm on it." She went to Nick and wrapped her arms around his waist. "Breathe deep and focus. Shh..."

  Nick was having a harder time than normal with his panic attack. He opened his mouth to tell Kody that she wasn't there--that she hadn't seen it, but luckily caught himself before he was that stupid and insensitive.

  She'd not only seen it. She'd died there with her family.

  And that made it worse for him.

  His breathing turned more ragged.

  "Beware the seeds that are planted, even in the most fallow of fields. For those we lay with callous hands, might very well prove to be those of our ultimate destruction."

  Nick blinked at Jaden's words. "Pardon?"

  "It's something Bathymaas used to say." Caleb's voice was tight as he spoke. "Those words were often carved on her temple walls as a reminder to use restraint and good judgement in all things. For whatever you plant today, you will ultimately reap tomorrow. Whenever you bring evil into your life or do evil to others, the universe will spit it back at you with a vengeance."

  And if Nick wasn't on edge enough, two seconds after Caleb finished speaking, something hit the front doors so hard, it caused them to rattle.

  Worse, blood ran beneath the doors, pooling around his feet....

  CHAPTER 13

  "Hellooooo? Akra-Menyara Cam lady, quality goddess, you in there? Why you gots all these nasty uglies circling outside your door anyways? Can the Simi eat some? 'Cause they just gonna drive away your good business people and they kind of scaring the tourists. If you ask me, it's just a public service to let the Simi eat them. Hello? Akra-Mennie? You in there? Can you hear me?"

  Laughing nervously, Nick almost fell over in relief at the sound of Simi's singsongy accent as she pounded on the doors with enough force to rattle the hinges. It was a wonder she wasn't shattering them.

  Dang, that demon was strong to be so thin. She could double as a wrecking crew.

  Kody went to the door to unlock it, while being careful not to step in the bloody demon mess that Simi had left behind on her arrival.

  She carefully opened the door after first peeking outside to make sure all the other demons were gone.

  Or eaten.

  Though to be honest, Simi usually asked permission before she chowed down on things that could converse.

  "That is you, right?" Kody asked.

  "Well, there better not be nobody else pretending to be the Simi or else the Simi going to have to get some barbecue sauce and eat them heads 'cause I ain't going to have no one else sleeping in my bed or hanging out with my akri in my stead, pretending to be me. The Simi don't cotton to no imposters. Nor do she share, unless forced to against her will and loud complaints. You can ask my akri and he will tell you this is quite true. Don't know what you heard, akra-Kody, but you were badly misinformed if you think otherwise."

  Yeah, that was definitely the adorable Goth demon Nick knew so well. All six feet, striped leggings, leather purple corset, and short, black frou-frou skirt of her. She had her black hair pulled up into two pigtails that fell in twisted cybergoth falls from just above her ears. Her coffin-shaped bag was slung over one shoulder and she wore a crystal vampire-bat choker.

  Cocking her hip and head, Simi frowned, pouted, then frowned again at them. "Well, what all happened in here that has y'all looking so sad and irritable? Party? Bomb? Bomb party? Did someone get a little too excited and burp a chaos demon who ran amok and did all this?"

  Then she saw some of the entrails on the floor and she bowed up at Caleb. "Oh no! No, you didn't! You done had a buffet and you didn't invite the Simi, for shame on you akri-Caleb! You a mean demon boy! You off the Simi Christmas list for that! No oven mitt for you! Bad, bad demon, bad!"

  Caleb laughed. "There was no buffet, Simi, I promise. We got here after it. I mean, not after the buffet. After the fight that made this mess. You didn't miss anything, other than a battle."

  "Oh, okay." She grinned adorably. "I'll put you back on my happy list of mitt deserving quality demons, then." She waved at Jaden. "Hello akri-demon-dealer-god-man! Been long, long time since I saw you last."

  "Hi, Simi. You still hanging out with that loser with a surfboard?"

  She gasped. "Akri-Savitar is the bestest. He makes the hottest diamond barbecue sauce this side of the Sunken City. You should try it sometime."

  "Yeah, I'll pass, I rather like my intestines not on fire. But thank you for the offer."

  She sighed and patted her coffin-shaped handbag. "Your loss, akri-Jay-Jay. The Simi telling you that it fully enhances all the flavors of the innards, and can kill the ones you don't like." Pursing her lips, she looked around the store. "So where's akra-Mennie? She promised the Simi some new sparklies!" There was something about Simi's enthusiasm and happiness over the simplest things that was infectious and made being around her such a joy.

  Provided she wasn't sizing you or your entrails up for her dinner pot.

  "We don't know." Nick gestured at the mess. "It was like this when we arrived."

  "Um, people." Xev paused as he moved toward the doors. "Anyone else realize that the demon Simi killed is still on the ground over here, bleeding and not self-cleaning the way we like our demons to?"

  "What's that mean?" Nick asked.

  "That it's crossed into this realm and has its own corporeal body." Caleb paled.

  "And Xev's right. We don't like when that happens." Kody turned even more ashen than Caleb--which was impressive given that her skin tone was darker.

  "Why?"

  It was Jaden who responded. "It's a whole new level of wet-your-pants evil. More powerful. More brazen. And when you kill them, you risk a jail sentence because you leave behind a body for the authorities to use for a murder charge."

  Nick's stomach shrank at those words.

  "It's what your father went to prison for killing. As you so eloquently once told Bubba, no one buys the old he-was-a-demon-who-needed-killing-Your-Honor plea." Caleb pulled the body into the store and used his powers to clean up the sidewalk. "Teams of them have been known to set us up and get the humans to come after us for centuries."

  "Yeah." Jaden stepped forward to examine the body. "They've razed entire villages. Dark Ages were a bitch.... Or a lot of fun, depending on your perspective."

  Caleb gave his father a disgruntled gape.

  Jaden scoffed. "Please. Like you've never toasted marshmallows over your enemies' corpses. You forget, I've seen you ... no wait, those were their brains you toasted, weren't they?"

  "Their hearts, actually," Xev said under his breath. "Then he ate them."

  Nick choked on that as he passed a concerned, wide-eyed stare to Kody. Note to self, don't piss off Caleb anymore.

  She gave him a droll smirk, but didn't comment.

  "Speaking of them munchies ... can the Simi have the body? Akri won't let me eat no people. But ugly demons nobody likes are usually on the menu." She passed an eager, hopeful, and extremely adorable look at them.

  "I got no problem with it." Caleb glanced around at the others.

  Nick cringed. "As long as I don't have to witness it, I guess I can live with it."

  Clapping her hands together in instant joy, Simi jumped up and down in excitement and made a sound in the back of her throat that vaguely sounded like a happy dog panting.

  Suddenly terrified by that amount of enthusiasm, Nick put a little more distance between them.

  "Before you go, Simi..." Kody caught her arm. "I have a favor to ask. We need to find Aeron. Can you help us track him down?"

  She was already digging her barbecue sauce from her purse. "Sure. But his friend would be better at it than the Simi. His nose is made to go a'sniffing."

  "Friend?" Nick scowled. "He doesn't have any friends."

  "Uh-huh. And that's just mean, akri-Nick! He gots that very nice wolfie friend what comes up to play with us when akri-Caleb at school. Sometimes we even goes out for eats."

  "Did you know about this?" Nick asked Caleb.

  Caleb shook his head. "I had no idea."

  But the look on Xev's face said that he might have a clue about it.

  "You know who she's talking about, don't you?"

  His jaw worked for several seconds before he finally spoke. "I didn't think he'd go back for him. But it shouldn't surprise me, either, I guess ... given their relationship. I'm extremely curious where they're hiding him, as he doesn't blend. At all. Ever. I can't imagine where they could put him that he wouldn't attract a lot of attention ... in either form."

  "Well, aren't we Mr. Dark and Cryptic ... shall we call him?" Nick pulled out his phone.

  "I doubt he knows how to work that. I'm sure he'd sniff it and eat it if you gave him one." He glanced at Simi. "Do you know where they're keeping him?"

  She nodded like a bobble head. "You know how akri-Caleb's house is up off the ground and gots all that room under it for storage?"

  Caleb screwed his face up. "Oh dear gods, he's in my wine cellar? Seriously?"

  She kept nodding.

  Caleb groaned irritably. "I'm thinking I should have made amends with my brother sooner and moved him into my house to watch the puca." He glanced from Simi to Xev and back again. "What kind of mutant life form do I have living in my cellar? And do I need to fumigate my house?"

  "He doesn't particularly stink unless you get him wet. But you might want to spray for fleas and ticks ... and he does like to chew on things.... He's a feral Cwn Annwn. With an extremely heavy emphasis on the feral part. As in he makes Zavid look like a hand-fed Pomeranian. Back in the day, he was Aeron's primary general. They're a scary pair when they get together. And whatever you do, don't give them alcohol of any kind. In any quantity. You liquor them up and that, my friends, is what really happened to the Picts. All of them. And why the Romans never got over Hadrian's Wall."

  Caleb laughed sarcastically. "Oh, goodie. He must be having a ball in New Orleans, chasing down all the lost and blackened souls, and unchristened people here."

  Xev nodded in agreement. "No doubt."

  "So why's he here?" Nick asked.

  "You shall have to ask Aeron." Crossing his arms over his chest, Xev sighed. "But Simi's right. Kaziel will hunt him down and get him back, and if Aeron didn't go of his own volition, I wouldn't want to be that guy when Kaziel lays fang to him. He is a battle cwn. Fiercely loyal. Trained by Scathach, the Lady Shadow, herself at her home fortress. And I can tell you from personal experience, he's a pistol load of fun."

  "Can't wait to meet him!" Nick said with a fake amount of enthusiasm. "All righty everybody, let's go get Scooby!"

  When Jaden started after them, both Xev and Caleb faced him with questioning brows raised.

  He returned their stares with an equal amount of unspoken defiance written in his expression.

  "Where do you think you're going?" they asked in perfect unison.

  Jaden blinked nonchalantly. "With you."

  "Why?"

  "I have a vested interest in how this plays out."

  "Since when?"

  Even though Caleb had spoken the question, Jaden cut a killer stare to Xev. "Since the day I sold myself into slavery to save the life of your son. Contrary to what you think, I didn't betray you. I was trying to save you both."

  With a slack jaw, Xev staggered back in disbelief. It was the same sensation Nick felt at that unexpected disclosure.

  "You knew about Jared?" Xev whispered.

  "Of course I knew. How stupid do you think I am? I knew it the moment I first held him in my arms."

  "Yet you never said anything? Why?"

  "The same reason you didn't. It would have destroyed both Jared and Myone." Agony burned deep in Jaden's eyes. But beneath that was a deep, undeniable love. It was obvious that he did care about his sons and their well-being. That he wasn't the heartless ogre they accused him of being. "In spite of what you and Caleb think, I've always loved you both. You are my sons. I just can't trust the blood inside you. I know the call it makes. How hard it is to resist. What do you think the Verlyn is? An unstoppable force I have no control over. Forget the blood of your mothers ... you both have that beast inside you."

  Xev shook his head. "I still don't understand..."

  "What? That I loved him as my own? That I protected him and raised him in my home?"

  "Yeah. Let's start with that, given how much you always hated me."

  Jaden winced. "Not trusting you isn't the same as hating you. You never could understand that. And I never asked to be at war with you. But every time I tried to reach out, you looked at me as if you could go through me. As if you wouldn't hesitate to cut my throat. And if I ever gave you the chance, you did betray me. So yeah, I've been cold in response to what I've felt. That's my nature. I never knew what to do with either of you, given your attitudes. Ironic, isn't it? My greatest fear was that your mother would use you to control me. Instead, it was your child who put me under her thumb completely. Had I done right by you and embraced you as the father you needed me to be when you were born, I wouldn't be forced to serve her now. Jared wouldn't be enslaved and we wouldn't have lost this war. I screwed everything up because I was blind and afraid."

  Nick stepped back as those words echoed in his head, and smacked eerily of what both Ambrose and Acheron had said to him.

  "We manifest our worst fears."

  They turned to stare at him.

  "Sorry, I didn't mean to intrude on your moment. I was just thinking over something Acheron said about how the worst things in his life happened because someone tried to circumvent his destiny. Had they just left it alone and allowed it to play out as it was intended, he and the world would have been a lot better off." Rubbing his hand over his face as he grappled with that, he glanced at Kody. "Is that the key to this? Should we stop trying to fix it? Just let it run as it's meant to?"

  But even as he asked the question, Nick knew it wasn't that simple. Not when the cost of doing nothing meant his mother would die.

  Maybe that was selfish.

  The world or his mother. If you were to ask anyone, they'd choose the world. To them, the choice would be simple. One life fo r billions ...

  Yet his mother was his world. And he was willing to sacrifice a billion strangers to save her. Because living out his life, knowing there was a chance he could have prevented her murder and didn't at least try ...

  He understood the source of Ambrose's madness.

  God help him for that.

  Kody wrapped her arms around his waist and leaned her head against his shoulder. "I know, Nick. I do. Remember, I chose you."

  "Woman, you chose poorly."

  Laughing, she kissed his cheek. "Let's find Aeron and we'll work on this puzzle once we have more pieces."

  He liked that plan. "Okay. As we all know, procrastination is my middle name."

  "The Simi thought it was Ambrosius."

  He laughed at her baffled tone. "Ambrosius Procrastinatius."

  She pursed her lips. "Hmm, that be as hard to say as Parthenopaeus. How you fit all that on your driver's license?"

  "Very carefully. And with a lot of practice."

  Winking at Simi, Nick teleported to Caleb's huge, sprawling mansion of a house. He popped into the living room and was quickly joined by the rest of his crew.

  He didn't move as he waited for all of them to appear. Though to be honest, it was eerily quiet like this. Nick had never been over when there wasn't loud, obnoxious music playing or demons attacking.

  "So..." He cocked a brow at Simi once everyone was there. "Where do we find this mysterious hellhound?"

  "Follow me." Caleb led them to the kitchen where the cellar door was. He passed an annoyed glance at Simi and Nick over his shoulder. "I'm really hoping my houseguest wasn't so inconsiderate as to invite a guest of his own. But I'm thinking I've been played."

  Turning on the light and opening the door, Caleb headed down the narrow spiral stairs.

  They followed him into the "cellar," which was an illusion since it was technically the first floor of the house built with tiny windows where they used to keep perishables back in the day before they had real refrigeration.

  At first, it didn't appear anyone was here. But as they neared the southern corner, there was no mistaking the presence of something highly powerful attempting to mask itself. The air literally crackled with the paranormal static of emanating power. Most creatures wouldn't be able to detect it.