And if Nick were to do that, it would end his life, too. He and the last Sephiroth were tied together. The ultimate evil and the ultimate good. Yin and yang.
His father patted him hard on his cheek. “That is the only way Jared could possibly kill you. As you said, you pick your own destruction.”
“Malachai!”
That feral shout startled Nick.
His father moved away from him. “See how hard your enemies are calling for you? They are desperate to capture you and use you against your own will.”
Crouched and ready to battle, Nick turned around slowly, trying to locate whatever was hunting him. “Where is he?”
“Have no fear. He can’t reach you here.”
Nick straightened up. “Why? Where are we?”
“Nowhere.”
Nick scoffed. “Ah, gee, Dad. Thanks so much for that. Like I didn’t know that already.”
Adarian shook his head. “You misunderstand. This is the nothingness between everything. That minuscule flicker that you can sometimes glimpse right before the dark becomes light. It’s the lost place where souls go when they can’t find their way home. And this is where you’ll be stranded if you don’t return to your real body before the ušumgallu rides.”
That was definitely not comforting, and somewhat confusing for him. “Why ride if they can’t win without me?”
He snorted. “War doesn’t care if she wins or not. It’s about the slaughter. The same is true for Death. Grim wins even when he loses. And while it is nice for them to be on the winning side, it’s not necessary. They don’t have the same drive to be victorious that you do, because they don’t have the same goals. Since we are Conquest, it is not in us to lie down and lose. Not for anything. So long as we breathe, we will fight to win.”
Anything worth doing was worth overdoing. One of Bubba’s mottos that Nick subscribed to.
It was true. Never give up. Never give in. Never surrender. Toe-to-toe to the bitterest end.
That was the true strength of the Malachai. It was never about the size of the dog in a fight, but rather it was all about the size of the fight in the dog.
And Nick was done running and hiding. He wanted his body back and he was more than willing to battle. Right here. Right now.
“Hey!” he shouted at the voice in his head. “You want my name, boy? Come get some.”
His father gaped. “What are you doing?”
He flashed a taunting grin at the older spirit. “I am my best at my worst.”
“Meaning what?”
“Meaning I’m about to flaunt my stupidity. You might want to take a few steps back, Dad, ’cause I’m pretty sure you’re standing in the splash zone, and some of my bodily fluids might spray out on you when he clobbers me.”
CHAPTER 16
Closing his eyes, Nick took a deep breath and reached down deep inside himself to tap the powers he barely understood. It was time for this to stop.
Sooner rather than later.
His heart pounded a fierce rhythm. Come on … work. Surely if he could set Stone on fire in class without trying, he could weasel some modicum of power out of himself with this herculean effort born of stringent Cajun stubbornness and all-out desperation.
Right?
Right!
And despite everything, nothing happened.
Arthritic minutes dragged by as he struggled for the most minuscule ability. Move a hair … bust a seam. Have a thought. Anything. But the harder he tried, the less he achieved. Like him, it was useless.
Just as he was about to give up, he heard a piercing drone inside his head. Suddenly, the darkness around them seemed to expand and then contract like a rubber band snapping back on him. And in that one moment, his senses sharpened and he saw …
Everything.
Literally. The entire universe was laid out before him. The Nick he’d replaced in this realm was destined for law school. He’d graduate at the top of his Harvard class and end up in Congress, an advocate for real change that helped everyone. Best of all, he’d marry his college sweetheart and have a huge family that adored him and their grandparents. In the flashing images, he saw Kyrian’s death in ancient Greece. Saw Kyrian’s resurrection at Artemis’s hands, and his centuries of guardianship where Kyrian stood strong. Until the day a kidnapped Kyrian awoke with Amanda Devereaux by his side, and the two of them were forced to run from an enemy out to kill them both.
Unable to control the visions that came at him like a supersonic strobe, Nick swung toward his father.
Only he didn’t see the fierce beast he knew the man to be. He saw his father much younger, in the hands of their enemy gods. Beaten and branded. Bleeding and chained. Trembling from the weight of his physical agony, his father knelt at the feet of a creature who held no compassion or mercy. “You were born to serve us, Malachai. Never forget who owns your life. Who you answer to.”
Noir—the god Nick couldn’t even mention by name without feeding his powers—savored his control over the Malachai. And he was aptly named. His hair was blacker than Caleb’s and his eyes were so dark it was hard to see where the iris stopped and the pupil began. Laughing, Noir fed from Adarian, draining his powers until the Malachai could no longer support his weight even on his knees. He hit the ground and lay in a defeated lump with tears streaming from the corners of his eyes while he begged silently for death. It was how all Malachai had been kept since the dawn of time, and it was what had made them so lethal and brutal. A weapon of ultimate massacre.
Instead of being treated like people, they’d been kept as animals and trained to kill on command. The more feral and afraid of their masters they were, the better. That was why Nick’s Thorn and Caleb had been so determined to keep Nick from Noir’s grasp. They knew exactly what the primal god would reduce him to before he unleashed Nick onto the world to end it.
More and more images came, faster and faster, clearer and clearer, but the most disturbing were the ones of Nick himself, in the future, destroying the very world that had birthed him. The world Kyrian and Acheron fought every night to protect. Lost and abandoned by everyone, Nick, too, had turned on humanity. All he wanted was to end his own pain.
The only way to achieve that was nuclear-level devastation of the entire planet.
I am the Malachai. The end of all things. Spawned for no other purpose than to bring down the primal light gods and serve Noir, Azura, and Braith—the originators of darkness and death—in any way they demanded. All of his species were born to suffer. And there could be no escape.
Throwing his head back, Nick roared with the weight of a destiny he wanted no part of.
I will not become that monster!
His body began to spasm and seize up, until he no longer had control of it. His teeth chattered so hard, he was amazed they didn’t shatter. The darkness slithered over him like a deadly boa constrictor. It wrapped itself around his limbs and climbed up his chest, squeezing him ever tighter.
“You will always be mine,” it whispered to him before it licked his cheek.
Adarian pulled back from Nicholas as he realized what was happening. Each of the primal gods had an element they controlled completely.
In all realms.
Somehow Noir had located Nicholas in this one. And he was using the darkness to reach the new Malachai and claim him. To bring him home. If Adarian didn’t do something, the boy would be sucked straight into Noir’s greedy hands.