Nick made a high-pitched noise of disagreement. “No!”
Simi bared her fangs at him. “The Simi don’t like that word, Akri-Nick. It a bad bad thing.”
“And I don’t like being burned by flaming demon breath, either, Simi.”
She blew him a raspberry. “You big demon baby.”
“Dang right.” He tightened his hold on Caleb’s shirt. “What do I do?”
“Run.”
Nick scoffed. Caleb made it sound so easy. But if he knew anything, it was that his life never had a simple answer to his problems, and he couldn’t breathe or stand, never mind get up and sprint across the lawn. “Won’t they find me if I run?”
Caleb didn’t hesitate with his response. “Yeah.”
“Then what’s the good in running?”
“You’ll feel like you at least tried?”
He gaped at his friend, hating Caleb’s sarcasm. “Not comforting, Caleb. Not comforting.”
Kody cupped his face in her hands and forced him to look at her. “You have your powers. Can you take us home? If you’re back in your own body, they won’t be able to track you. Right?”
Caleb shrugged.
Kody popped him on the arm.
“Ow!” He rubbed the spot where she struck him. “I don’t know, woman. Sounds good to me. It’s worth a try, I guess.”
Ignoring them, Nick glanced around the yard to where Savitar and Ash were still unconscious. Bubba, Mark, the two Tophers, and Cherise were cautiously leaving the house. He met Simi’s gaze then Caleb’s and finally he returned to Kody, and all the while the pain in his chest burned deeper and more ferocious. He had to do something. Fast. “I can try.”
She leaned down to place a chaste kiss on his lips. “You will succeed.”
Like Caleb, Kody made it all sound so easy. But Nick lacked her optimism. At this point, they’d been told so many differing things on what he needed to do to get home and be safe that nothing made sense anymore. He felt as though he’d been stuck here forever.
Stop complaining. At least you have your powers back.
That was true. Not to mention, his father had told him that this body couldn’t contain his real spirit. If he could bypass that realm his father had been in, then maybe, just maybe, he might make it back to where he came from and no one would be able to track him there. All he had to do then was kick the other Nick out of his skin and hope for another miracle.
Yeah, he felt like laughing at the ridiculousness of that, too.
Closing his eyes, he tried to focus.
“You can do this, Nick,” Kody whispered in his ear as she clutched his hand in hers. “I have complete faith in you. Think of your mom and Aunt Mennie and Liza and Kyrian. All the people who love you. The ones who need you.”
Her voice was so hypnotic. It lulled him into a sense of complete peace while she continued to remind him of the things he valued at home. The people who were his family, even without blood ties.
Instead of helping him, though, it felt more like she was putting him to sleep. In spite of the pain, his eyes became heavy. His limbs weak. Before he knew what was happening, he went completely limp and fell into a black hole.
Panicking, Nick tried to grab hold in the darkness. Nothing was there. He couldn’t even hear Kody’s voice anymore.
Was he dead?
Dying? He had no way of knowing. This was an absolute cessation of sensory input. He could no longer hear, see, taste, smell, or feel anything. His eyes rolled back in his head.
And still he fell.
Angry and scared, he summoned his powers with everything he had and did his best to stop the free fall.
Suddenly, the darkness began to cradle him. It slithered around his limbs and wound itself tightly over his chest just as it’d done earlier. He heard the sound of a thousand hooves running far away like a powerful thrumming heartbeat.
Then he saw the Ambrose Malachai in all its glory. Tall, evil, and unstoppable. Covered in armor, the beast was terrifying. Caleb stood to his right, with a sick look on his face. Dressed in his own battle armor and with his wings extended, Caleb brushed his hand over the blood that covered him. “Your enemies have been routed, my lord. They are down to only a tiny handful who’ve taken refuge in the church.”
Nick, as the Ambrose Malachai, arched a brow at Caleb’s tone while he gave his report. He turned his red gaze to his once trusted friend who no longer meant anything to him. “You dare condemn me?”
“No, my lord. It’s not my place.” What had he done to Caleb to make him so subservient? Never had he known the demon to be so obsequious.
Nick hated seeing him like that.
Fear was not respect. It was only a cold substitution. He would rather have Caleb’s biting sarcasm than this shell of a boot-licking sycophant, trying to placate him. But the Ambrose Malachai didn’t seem to care or to notice the difference. He merely walked all over everyone around him.
Disgusted by the sight, Nick shook his head to clear it and forced his thoughts to his mother and his home. He had to return to her. Without him, she was defenseless.
“Talk to me, Kody. Guide me back to my New Orleans.”
Oppressive silence answered him. It rang in his ears until it overrode the sound of his own heartbeat.
I’m lost.
No. He couldn’t think that way. If he did, he really would be lost and he’d never return to the world he knew. The world he loved.
I must stay focused. Keep his eye on the target. The landscape was home. Back to the world that made sense to him. To the place where Madaug was his nerdy friend and Stone was the one who slammed him into lockers.
Natural order.
Positive. Negative.
Abnormal normality.
“Come to me, Nicholas. I can make it all better.”
Nick hesitated at the beckoning voice that filled him with an inexplicable joy. It was like a mother’s caress. Soft. Gentle. Soothing. Alluring.
He almost gave in, until he remembered one fact he’d learned the hard way—beware the easy path. It’s never as simple as it seems. Even Zavid had warned him of that, and he knew it for fact. Don’t sell your soul for a lifetime of slavery to avoid a brief time of misery. This, too, shall pass.
If he was going to go down in flames, it’d be to the tune he picked. Not something forced on him by someone else.
“You want me, lady. Come get some. But I’m not going to you.” And he dang sure wasn’t going to make it easy on her.
Nick concentrated as hard as he could on the home he wanted to return to. He imagined himself in his room, grounded for life by his mother. The darkness spun faster as if trying to drag him away from that image.
In true Gautier form, he dug his heels in and refused to let it sway him. “I am not your pawn or your tool!” he growled. “You will not own me. You will not control me.”
As if offended, the darkness let go and he fell fast enough that his eyesight blurred.
He slammed into a wall so hard, it shattered around him like glass. His spine felt busted. Fragments showered him as he finally came to a rest, flat on his back. His breathing labored, he groaned out loud in utter agony. Afraid yet determined, Nick opened his eyes to meet his newest threat.
It came in the form of a slobbering, growling wolf with bared fangs.
Nick started to attack until he realized where he was. He knew that elaborate crown molding. That ornate French mural that was painted across the ceiling.
This was Caleb’s house.
That would mean the wolf was …
“Zavid?”
The wolf pulled back to glare suspiciously at him.
Nick pushed himself up. “Dude, we need to get you some serious breath mints. Stop panting on me, I’m not your Saturday night girl.”