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.”
Backing away, Zavid returned to his human form. He narrowed his eyes suspiciously. “Gautier? That really you?” He reached out and his hand passed straight through Nick’s body.
Nick let out a sound of disgust. He didn’t even want to know what he looked like right now. “That’s not a good sign, is it?”
“Depends. Are you alive or dead?”
“I’m going with alive because it beats the alternative.”
Zavid rolled his eyes. “Where’s Malphas?”
“Cabal!” Nick shouted, hoping it would work. He glanced to Zavid. “Do I really have to call a demon in triplicate every time I want to summon it?”
Before the wolf could answer, Caleb appeared by his side.
“Guess not,” Nick answered. This was getting better. His powers were holding and doing what they were supposed to. At least for the time being. “How do I get S—”
As if sensing the question, Simi appeared instantly on his six. “Akri-Nick! You made it. Good for you.” She slapped Caleb playfully on his arm. “See, the Simi done told you that that mean ole darkness wouldn’t eat his head like you said it would. You didn’t believe me. Next time the Simi tells you something, you’ll listen. Mmm, and speaking of, all this inner dimensional travel done made the Simi hungry again. What you gots to eat in this place?”
Caleb pointed to Zavid. “I hear barbecued wolf is a delicacy on most continents.”
Offended, Zavid glared at him. “Excuse me?”
“I would, Z, but you keep doing stupid crap. And there’s just no excuse for that.”
Nick ignored them while he waited on Kody to join their group.
After a couple of minutes, he glanced back at the two demons, who were still arguing while Simi was rooting through Caleb’s kitchen pantry. Lightning flashed outside before the sound of thunder rattled the windows.
“Hey, guys! Can I have your attention for a sec?” He counted his concerns off on his fingers. “One, where’s the alternate me so I can repo my bod and get back to normal? Kind of miss it, and I don’t want to stay like a ghost. And two, where’s my girl? I miss her more than my body.”
Zavid grimaced in distaste. “Since I don’t hear the screeching whine of a child that makes my ears bleed, I’m assuming Nick Two is still unconscious inside the closet I locked him in.”
Caleb rolled his eyes. “Are you serious?”
“You told me not to let him get eaten or kill him until you got back. He’s not eaten and I didn’t kill him. Really, you should congratulate my restraint … which was seriously hard won.”
“Congratulations. I’m not going to kill you.”
And still, neither answered the most pertinent question. “Where’s Kody? Do I have to summon her by name, too?”
“She’s not a demon,” Caleb reminded him. “That only works on us.”
“Then where is she?”
Zavid shrugged while Caleb scratched uncomfortably at his neck. That was never a good thing where Caleb was concerned.
An awful feeling went through Nick. “What?” he asked Caleb.
He refused to answer.
Oh yeah, this was going to suck.…
With a box of Ding Dongs in hand, Simi drifted back into the foyer where they stood. “Man up, demon. Tell the boy what he’s asking about.”
Still, Caleb hedged.
“What?” Nick repeated, this time to Simi. “What’s happening? Why isn’t Kody here?”
Simi sighed heavily then swallowed her mouthful of cupcake. “You know Miss Akra-Kody not human, right?”
“Yeah, I’m not that oblivious.”
Simi dug out another package from the box. “Well, see, there’s a little problem. Akra-Kody be a ghost and they can’t travel like we does and Caleb couldn’t bring her back like he did me, ’cause she got no real living body. She gots one of them borrowed bodies that are … different. Once they leaves a dimension, they can’t really get back to it.”
The knot in his stomach tightened to the point he thought he’d be sick. “I don’t understand.”
Caleb groaned under his breath before he picked up the explanation. “You know the old joke about the dead, don’t go into the light?”
“Yeah.”
“We went into the light. Kody won’t be able to cross back … ever.”
Rage erupted inside him. Before he could stop himself, he grabbed Caleb and slammed him into the wall. He wasn’t sure how he could do that while Caleb still couldn’t touch him, but he was too angry to question it right now. Not while he had more pressing concerns. “You’re lying to me!”
Caleb shook his head. “I wouldn’t do that. And you know Simi could never.”
Releasing Caleb, Nick didn’t want to believe it. Tears made his vision swim as an unbelievable agony tore through him.
Kody gone? How could that be true?
“Why didn’t she say something?”
“She knew you wouldn’t come back without her and we didn’t have time to waste. We still don’t. You have to merge back into your body, kick down your army, and seal them out before the next new moon. Which is roughly sixteen hours from now, give or take.”
A loud, piercing screech erupted from somewhere Nick couldn’t locate. It sounded like the air itself made it. The storm outside increased its intensity. If he didn’t know better, he’d think they were in the middle of a hurricane.
Zavid flinched as if something had struck him. “Definitely less. That’s the cry from another šarru. Something just broke its seal and released it into this world. We have to move fast.” He rushed for the stairs.
“Nick?” Caleb said in an earnest tone when Nick didn’t rush after Zavid. “What are you thinking?”
He was thinking that he wanted to go back and get Kody. Right now. He was thinking that he had no desire to be here without her. To live in a world where she didn’t exist.
She’d given up everything for them, without hesitation.
And that made him even angrier. Did she not love him at all? How could she just let him go without saying anything, knowing she’d never see him again?
Did she not care?
I meant nothing to her.