“No.” Kody brushed his hair back from his face to feel for a fever. “Ash and Savitar, along with Simi, routed them.”
Simi made a sound similar to a horse. “Bah! Akra-Kody helped us a lot, too. She a good helper in a fight.”
Those words of praise brought a slight blush to Kody’s cheeks. “Savitar and Ash are still out, making sure our enemies don’t come back any sooner than necessary.” She stood up, then helped him to his feet. “So what happened to you? You were saying all kinds of crazy things while you were out.”
He could just imagine. “At least tell me I didn’t snore.”
Kody laughed. “You didn’t snore, but you did call me by your father’s name. I hope that’s not some weird psycho thing you have where you subliminally want to date your father.”
Nick choked and shuddered. “Hardly. Besides, I look so much like him, that’d be narcissism to the extreme. And while I occasionally like myself, I definitely don’t love myself. In any sense of that word.”
Taking a deep breath, he surveyed the damage around him, which wasn’t as bad as it could have been. Bubba and Mark were tending wounds not far away and restocking weapons. Nick had to say that they’d looked better. ’Course, they’d also looked a lot worse.
“Where’s my mom?” he asked them.
Bubba set his Neosporin aside and jerked his chin toward the fortified door. “She’s in the shelter with Topher looking out for her, under severe death threats. I don’t know how long Acheron and Savitar can hold Thorn and them off. Thorn promised he’d be back and I’m pretty sure the psycho meant it. Hell-monkeys be danged. I don’t think anything is going to stop him for long. Not even your friends.”
Nick bit his lip as he considered the best course of action. Bubba was right. Thorn would return as soon as he could. They had to move fast.
“Kode? If we had Caleb here, could the two of you reverse whatever it was you did to my powers?”
“Maybe. But we don’t have Caleb.”
“Or do we?”
She arched a brow at him. “Did you hit your head again, sweetie? I’ve warned you about the dangers of concussions.”
He grinned. “Kind of, but I did learn something that I hope isn’t a lie.”
“And that is?”
Praying his father wasn’t setting him up for slaughter or a ton of therapy-inducing humiliation, Nick took a deep breath then called out. “Cabal. Cabal. Cabal. I summon you to me. Now.”
Simi and Kody exchanged a look that said he was as crazy as he suddenly felt when nothing happened.
Great, Dad. I can look stupid on my own. Didn’t really need you to help out on that front.
That was his thought until he heard a curse and something slammed into him, knocking him against the wall. Nick shoved his attacker away, then froze as he looked into a pair of familiar, startled brown eyes. Now this was the giant, badass-tough demon that Nick was used to.
“Malphas?”
Tense and braced to fight, Caleb turned around slowly, surveying every aspect of his new surroundings. He paused as he faced Kody and Simi. “Where the heck am I? And how did I get here?”
Kody pointed to Nick. “Apparently, Nick summoned you.”
“Nick?” Caleb glanced right past Nick and kept searching the room with his gaze. “Our Nick? Where is the little booger?”
She gestured even more exaggeratedly at Nick’s position. “Right there.”
Caleb’s jaw went slack as he faced him. “Nick?”
“Caleb?”
The word had barely left his lips before Caleb grabbed him into a bear hug and held him tight. Which was extremely awkward and gross. Completely weirded out by it, Nick tried to disentangle himself from the demon. It wasn’t like Caleb to show any emotion toward him other than irritation or frustration. Sometimes anger.
Okay, a lot of times anger.
Still, affection toward anything other than food …
Completely unnatural.
“Stop, C! If you’re going to hug me like this, you got to buy me dinner first, boy. And it’s got to be someplace nice, like Antoine’s or Brennan’s. I ain’t easy or cheap.”
Laughing, Caleb stepped back and narrowed his eyes on Nick as he held him by his arms. “Dude … did you lose a bet with a sorcerer or something?”
Nick gave him a droll smirk. “Don’t taunt me now that I know your real name. I’m told I can do some damage to you with that. Make you fetch my slippers and stuff.”
Now it was Kody’s turn to gape as she understood. “Cabal? His summoning name is Cabal? Really?”
Caleb visibly cringed. “Don’t, Nekoda. Just don’t. I can wreck your day, too, you know?”
She held her hands up in surrender. “Yes, you can. Please don’t. I’ve already forgotten I ever heard it.”
“Good woman.”
Nick tilted his head as he took in Caleb’s bruised face. “What got ahold of you?”
“A lot of things that were trying to snatch your body from my custody. And we can’t leave Zavid alone with it. He’s extremely likely to throw it out the door and let the others have you to save his own hide. Unlike me, he’s not real attached to you, and I don’t like or trust untested loyalty.”
Neither did Nick. “I have been told by countless dead people today that you and Kody have to free my powers first.”
“Countless dead people?” Caleb asked.
“Long story.” Nick inclined his head to Kody. “Can you two fix me?”
She met Caleb’s gaze. “I was told we needed the Magus Stone to restore his powers. It’s what they used to do this to him.”
Caleb choked on that. “Apollymi’s necklace? Are you nuts?”
“Ooo,” Simi breathed. “The sparkly, shiny one. I know that necklace. Akra used to pacify the Simi with it when she was a very little simi. It’s why the Simi loves her sparklies so.”
Kody sucked her breath in sharply. “Do you think you could borrow it?”
Simi burst out laughing, then sobered. “Oh. You were actually serious with the Simi and not making a joke.… Um, no. Akra need it to feed her Daimons and she’d pull the Simi’s wings off if I tried to take it. That mean old Stryker would probably help, too. He bad that way. And no offense, but the Simi done like her wings. They make traveling very nice and very easy. Much faster than walking. And I know you know what I mean.”
Caleb crossed his arms over his chest. “It wouldn’t matter if we had it. Nick would still need his powers. It’s worthless to us without those.”
“How so?” Kody asked. “I have the blood of Set in me. Shouldn’t it work if I used it?”
“Want to bet our lives on it?”
“Uh, not really, and especially not with our combined luck.” Kody sighed. “Fine. Let’s try to unlock his powers and see where it gets us.”
“Hopefully not the hospital,” Nick mumbled under his breath.
Bubba cleared his throat to get their attention. “Whatever you have planned, you might want to step it up a notch and be quick about it. We have bad guys heading in again and they’re moving double-time.”
Nick moaned out loud. “Can’t we catch a break?”
Caleb snorted. “Pretty sure one of them would be willing to break a knee or any other bone they can reach.”
“Ha, ha.”
Kody held her hand out to Caleb. “Let’s do this.”
While Caleb took it, Nick glanced over to the monitor that Bubba and Mark were watching via webcams stationed down the street. His eyes bugged at the sight of their impending doom. Bubba wasn’t exaggerating even a little bit. Thorn was back with a lot of reinforcements. Reinforcements that were dragging, bound in chains, a number of Acheron’s hell-monkeys in their wake.
And then he realized what else they were carrying.
No … it couldn’t be.