Invision Page 9

  Dr. Burdette gave them a look that said he was having a hard time imagining them in their true, respective roles. "How is it a Malachai knows so little about demons?"

  "He screams like a girl if he has to watch a horror movie."

  "Hey!"

  "Well, you do. I tried to watch Child's Play and you ran off to hide during the opening credits. And then he had to go sleep with his mom in her bed for three days because he was so scared."

  "Dude! You promised me you weren't going to tell anyone about that."

  Dr. Burdette gaped. "You're not kidding?"

  "Of course not. I have to change his jeans whenever he wets them."

  "Cay! That's it! You're banned from watch duty. Don't I have someone else who can guard me? Where's Xev? At least he doesn't speak to anyone. Never mind tell them horrifying truths about me. Except for the pants wetting ... for the record, I quit doing that."

  "Yeah, last year."

  "Caleb!"

  Dr. Burdette laughed. "You two are not the norm I'm used to running across in this job."

  Caleb snorted disdainfully. "That's because you hang out with loser classes of demons. You should party with me and my friends sometime. Leave the weaponry at home, though. You pull something on one of us, and we will return it to your possession through your least comfortable orifice."

  Nick cocked his head as a weird vision went through his mind. Funny, he never really thought about what Caleb did when they weren't together. Who he hung out with. Since Caleb didn't talk about it, he'd assumed that he went into demon limbo or something.

  Although, Caleb had been really familiar with all the creatures on the other side of the Veil when they'd gone into the Shadowland to rescue Nick's mother the night his father died.

  In his head, he saw Caleb in a peculiar bar, laughing and joking with a group of demons who weren't disguised as humans. They were fully demoned-out. Even Caleb had let his freak demon fly.

  "I didn't know you had pointed ears like an elf. You're the one I should be calling Legolas instead of Aeron."

  Caleb turned toward him with a sharp frown. "What was that?"

  Nick blinked. "I had an image of you with friends in the Veil World. You were in your normal skin, so to speak. Since we've always been one step from death whenever I've seen you in your demon form, I never noticed your ears."

  "Yours are pointed, too, FYI."

  "Really?"

  Caleb nodded. "Teeth, too. You're totally sick when you go Malachai."

  "Great. Good to know. Don't do that in front of a girlfriend I want to keep."

  Caleb came forward to squat down in front of Nick with a fierce frown. "This is so strange."

  "What?"

  "It's like ... but it can't be."

  "Like what? You're scaring me."

  "Told you," he mumbled under his breath. "Frightens like a three-year-old girl." Then louder, he spoke to Nick. "You have all the symptoms Adarian would show anytime you came near him. I swear it's like there's another Malachai here. But there can't be. It's not possible." He glanced at Dr. Burdette. "What tools are you carrying?"

  "Nothing that would drain a Malachai. I have my sword. Some holy water. Nothing too powerful. I wasn't planning on stalking anything while I was here. Michael would be better stocked for that than I am."

  Caleb tilted his head up to look at the sigils and symbols Bubba had inscribed on his walls and windows for protection. "Yeah, but he's not. Other than some salt, which doesn't affect kid supreme, there's nothing he's used that would touch him. We're over here all the time with no ill effects. Bubba has invited us in so we're safe.... It doesn't make sense."

  "How does Michael not know what you are?"

  "Not something we spread around. And Nick's mother has no clue, either. We intend to keep it that way."

  "Yet she's part Sephiroth?"

  "And has no clue about that, either. Again, long story."

  "It'd have to be," Dr. Burdette said with a laugh. "But in all seriousness if he's lost or losing power, then there's something here that's dark. Something that's found a way to channel his power for its own use."

  "That's what I'm thinking."

  "You know if it's able to do that--"

  "It's not here to make friends."

  Nick didn't like the direction their conversation was headed. "So what are you two thinking?"

  Caleb gave him a long, hard stare. "That whatever has you, knows what you are. Knows that you're not adept at your powers and that who or whatever it is has a plan to take you down. And take the rest of us with you."

  "That's normal. We can stop them. We always do."

  "There's just one problem."

  Nick couldn't imagine what. "And that is?"

  "We don't know who. We don't know what. We don't know how."

  "That's not one. That's three."

  "No, punkin'. That's one big, bad-ass entity with serious skills who's going to mop the floor with us."

  "But you said that I couldn't die now."

  "Yeah, as the Malachai. But if they take the Malachai out of you..."

  "I can die, after all."

  Caleb nodded. "Yeah. In the past, it's only been the Malachai's son who had the ability to weaken him. But if someone or something has found another way to do it..."

  "I'm finished."

  "We all are."

  "You think that's why Aeron's gone?"

  Caleb shrugged. "I don't know. I wasn't able to find a trace of him earlier. It's like he's vanished from the face of this earth. I don't know what's happened to him."

  A bad feeling went through Nick, but he refused to let it take root. Aeron wouldn't be behind this.

  He wouldn't. That was the Malachai voice that wanted to hate everyone around him. To trust no one with anything.

  But this was coming from somewhere. As usual, he was being targeted for extinction. The problem, though, was he had no idea where to begin looking for this enemy. If it was Grim, he was doing a great job hiding.

  If it was something else ...

  He was screwed, because they wouldn't see it coming until who or what made its move. And the one thing they'd all learned over these past few years--whenever that happened, it left a mark.

  Nick only prayed that this time, it didn't take his head. Or worse, the head of someone close to him.

  CHAPTER 6

  "See, hon, he's fine. Told you I wasn't going to let anything happen to your young one."

  Nick glanced up as his mom and Bubba came through the door. As tiny as Bubba was large, Cherise Gautier had blond hair and vivid blue eyes that filled her angelic face. Still dressed in her black Sanctuary T-shirt from work, she rushed past Bubba to the couch where Nick was sitting with Kody.

  Faster than he could move, she latched onto him with her ninja mom moves and octopus-like tentacle grip. Dang, for a tiny woman, she was stronger than all get-out. Forget toddler strength, his mother could match Hercules.

  "Ma ... can't ... breathe! You're choking off my airway. Counterproductive move. Release the choke hold on your sole progeny before you kill him."

  Laughing, she ruffled his hair before she kissed his forehead to check for a fever. Unlike a normal mother who would use her hand or a sanitary thermometer, his mom had never once done that.

  Nope, Cherise Gautier always checked with a kiss and a tickle, which made him jump and let out an undignified noise in front of his girl and best friend--something he did not appreciate. But all Caleb did was make a face while Kody laughed.

  Meanwhile, his mom didn't care that her son had no measurable dignity or ego, hence his most hideous wardrobe. And her need to cup his face like he was still three and pinch playfully at his cheeks until he flashed a dimple at her. "You do feel a little warm, Boo, but not bad. How are you feeling?"

  "Better 'til you pinched me. Kody brought my homework." He held his English book up for her to see. "I'm almost done with my assignments."

  His mom patted Kody's knee. "Thank you, Miss Kody."