But it was. All of his powers were gone. Every last one of them. He had nothing. Not even a glimmer of the scrying or clairvoyance or anything.
I’m totally without and locked in Hades.
Horrified, Nick gaped at the unfamiliar face he saw in the mirror that wasn’t his. He pinched himself and shook his head. It was him. Somehow he’d morphed into a short blond dude.
Unable to accept it, he tried everything he could to wake up. But nothing worked. He continued to exist here in this freakworld.
It’s not a dream.
Somehow this was real. He was real, and he was here, wherever here was.
Madaug walked in and sneered at him. No longer skinny and nerdy, he was the six feet four Nick should have been, and ripped. “What you looking at, Burdette? Cruising for a date?”
“Burdette?” Nick repeated, looking around for Bubba.
Madaug shoved him. “Nick Burdette? Can’t you even recognize your own name?” He rolled his eyes. “Dog, boy, how dumb are you?” He went over to a urinal.
Stunned, confused, and terrified, Nick stumbled out to the prom that was filled with people he knew but didn’t recognize. Reaching for something, anything to prove this wasn’t happening, that he was being punk’d, he pulled his wallet out and checked his license.
It was the “new” blond him in the photo, but what hit him like a kick in the crotch was the name.
Nicholas Michael Burdette instead of Nicholas Ambrosius Gautier.
“What the Hades has happened?”
And more importantly … how could he undo it when he no longer had any power and his preternatural allies were now all woefully normal?
CHAPTER 1
“Nick? Boo? Get up. You’re going to be late for school.”
Groaning in fear of what he might find this time, Nick opened his eyes to see the navy blue curtains his mom had bought him last year when they moved into their condo on Bourbon Street. Relief flooded him.
It was just a nightmare, after all. Thank you, God!
That was his thought until he realized that the window wasn’t the same. Instead of being a large single window, it was two windows with a divider between them.
Ah, crap. Not again. Haven’t I suffered enough indignities and horrors? Really?
His heart hammering, Nick slowly swept his gaze around a room he didn’t recognize.
At all.
His stomach tightened to the point he feared he’d be ill.
“Nick?” His mom knocked lightly before she pushed open the door to smile at him. “So you are up, sleepyhead. Hurry now, or else you’ll get another tardy.”
Even more unsettled than before, Nick gaped at the sight of her in an expensive dark blue business suit with her blond hair cut short to frame her beautiful face. That definitely wasn’t her waitress uniform.
“Mom?”
Scowling, she moved to stand by the bed and placed her hand to his forehead. “Are you all right? You look pale.”
Stunned, he couldn’t speak as he stared at a stranger in his mother’s body.
“Cherise? It’s London calling. They need to speak to you. Said it can’t wait.”
His eyes widened at the sound of that familiar deep, thick Tennessee Southern drawl. Bubba? What the heck was Bubba doing in his house at seven thirty in the morning? It’d been bad enough when Nick had come home from the prom and found him here. But that he’d attributed to a date.
No, wait. That wasn’t right. Someone had told him at the prom that Bubba was his father now. Caleb?
For some reason, he couldn’t remember.
And why in the world would someone in London call his mom?
Maybe London’s a name?
No. Not possible. This was bad bad. His mom didn’t know anyone named London.…
“I’ll be right there, Michael.” She squeezed Nick’s cheek. “You don’t have a fever. Did you stay up too late?”
Honestly? He feared some kind of terminal brain damage. How hard had that demon slammed him on the ground while they fought to get his mom back?
His door opened again to show “Bubba” in a black Armani suit. Nick only knew that designer brand because they were the ones his immortal boss, Kyrian, favored and Nick had had a seizure the first time he’d gone to pick one up and had seen the cost of it.
Who wore that stuff and why?
Huge as ever, Bubba had abandoned his beard for smooth cheeks and wore a short, stylish cut. Yeah, this definitely wasn’t the burly redneck who hunted zombies in the bayou with his lunatic best friend. One who was paranoid as all get out, and armed to a level that the ATF had him on their watch list.
As if he hadn’t morphed into some creepy businessman, Bubba came in and handed a cordless phone to his mom.
Removing her expensive earring, she cupped her hand over the mouthpiece and whispered to Bubba. “I think our Boo is sick. See what you think.” She stepped out of the room to deal with her call.
Bubba knelt his gigantic form by the bed and brushed the hair back from Nick’s forehead. “You all right, buddy?” Now there was a loving tone Bubba had never used with him before. That was even more terrifying than having a Charonte demon try to eat him.
Completely dumbfounded by it all, Nick dropped his gaze to the huge football championship ring on Bubba’s hand. The diamonds on the front formed a pattern reminiscent of a fleur-de-lis. They were framed by the words “Forty” on one side and “Niners” on the other. The name “Burdette” was on the “Forty” side and “Super Bowl XXIV 55-10” on the “Niners” side. Gasping, he fingered the ring as he remembered Bubba’s mama telling him how Bubba could have gone pro after college, but had decided to stay home with his wife and son instead. “This looks so real.”
Bubba snorted. “It is real, you know that.” He duplicated Nick’s scowl. “What’s going on with you, Squirt? You have a test you’re trying to avoid?”
“No. I … uh … yeah, no, I’m fine. Not a morning person.”
Laughing, Bubba stood up and pulled the covers off Nick. “Come on. Mom made pancakes for breakfast and they’re getting cold.” He left the room.
Still disoriented and confused, Nick rolled out of bed. This was so screwed up. Raking his hand through his hair, he gaped at the photo on his desk of a sweaty Bubba in a 49ers uniform holding him as a toddler, dressed in a matching 49ers jersey with BURDETTE on the back. At least Nick thought it was him. The face and blond hair belonged to the stranger he kept seeing in the mirror. It was a picture from a newspaper where the 49ers had won the Super Bowl, January 28, 1990.
What the heck?
In 1990, Nick would have been six. The “Nick” in the photo couldn’t be more than three or four.
“I’m in another coma.” At least that made sense to his scrambled mind.
Yeah, he could definitely go with that. Instead of being sent to the Nether Realm, he was trapped here, wherever here was. Caleb or Kody would wake him up at any moment and everything would be back to normal. He just had to make sure he didn’t get sucked into a hell realm and eaten by a demon or zombie until they figured this out and performed another rescue mission.
C’mon guys, hurry. He wasn’t sure how long his sanity would hold.
Cringing at what he saw in the bathroom mirror, he curled his lip. Gah, it was so strange to see someone else peering back at him. While he’d never been vain, he missed the way he used to look. The dark hair.
And height. He really missed being tall. Short sucked. How did short guys stand it?
Give me growing pains any day over this.