Illusion: Chronicles of Nick (11 page)

“Nick Burdette didn’t need to meet a Dark-Hunter to put him on the right path, away from the darkness that was trying to claim him. He has Bubba here to keep him straight. He doesn’t need Acheron to watch over him. Or Caleb to guard him from forces he’s not strong enough to fight yet.”

He was struggling to make sense of it all. Everything she said was valid, but … “What about Amanda and Tabitha and Karma? Why are they good in our world and not in this one?”

Kody sighed. “In both worlds, they, like you, were born to walk the line of shadows. One foot in the light and one in the dark. A few are scared enough of both that they stay in the middle and never pick a side. Others are strong enough to choose the light and stay firmly planted there, even while the darkness tries to claim them. And others are too weak or blind to fight the lure of darkness. It overwhelms them with false promises and before they know what’s happened, it owns them. Sometimes, like the Thorn you know in our world, they can battle their way back to the light and put the darkness behind them even though it continues to try and reclaim them. But those people are very rare. I don’t know what kept our Tabby and Amanda on the right side in our world nor do I know what corrupted them here. As Savitar said, it’s a matter of free will. Decisions made at the wrong or right time, for the wrong or right reasons.”

Nick picked her hand up from the seat and studied the scars on her knuckles. Even though she was a veteran warrior, her hands were soft and tiny. Delicate. And yet they held a strength that was unfathomable to him. “How old are you, Kody? Really?”

“I had just turned nineteen when you killed me.”

He sucked his breath in sharply as her words slapped him hard. He wasn’t that far away from turning nineteen himself. Just a little over two years. “And you were fighting the Malachai at that age? Why?”

She snorted. “By the time my father was nineteen, he was an experienced war veteran and a feared general.”

“And he was okay with you following in his footsteps at that age?”

“Not really, but he had no say in it. I became a soldier after you killed him.”

He winced and wondered how she could stand to be in the same car with him right now. Why she didn’t try to claw his eyes out every time she looked at him.

Kody squeezed his fingers as if she knew what he was thinking. “As an infant, my oldest brother was taken from my parents and they weren’t allowed to raise him. For centuries, my father thought him dead while my mother … well, both of them really, were imprisoned by different gods. When they were finally reunited, long after my oldest brother was grown, they had my brother Ari right away.” A bittersweet smile curled her lips. “They were so overprotective of him that I’m told it scarred him for life. And for the longest time, they were afraid to have another child. They just wanted to protect the two they had and make sure nothing bad happened to them.”

“Were you an uh-oh baby?” Nick teased, trying to ease the grief in her eyes.

She wrinkled her nose at him. “No. I wasn’t an uh-oh.” There was a hint of laughter in her voice. “Many centuries later, after Ari was grown and married, my parents decided that they were finally ready to have another baby to viciously overprotect.”

The light faded as sadness darkened her eyes again. “I was only two when something happened to you. I don’t know what. But it unleashed the Malachai and you went crazy on the world. I was sent into hiding and trained to battle your forces while my family rallied their allies and did what they could to keep your army at bay and protect the world.”

Nick ground his teeth at the horrors of her life. Horrors
he’d
caused for her and all the people they loved. He’d never hated himself more than he did right now. “I’m so sorry I hurt you.”

“
You
didn’t.”

That wasn’t true, but he appreciated her saying it. At the end of the day, he was the Malachai. Whatever his future self did, it was him, too.

Now he understood why Ambrose was so desperate to change the past. His future self had told him that he could feel the last of the goodness inside him dying. That any day, he expected the Malachai to devour his conscience and render him a merciless monster. Because of it, Ambrose was barely sane at times as he tried to keep Nick from making the same mistakes he’d made at Nick’s age. To steer Nick onto another path that kept him firmly planted in the light.

And once that decency was gone, the Malachai would take over and kill everything and everyone. That was what his species had been born to do.

Man, it sucked.

“You should have told me the truth before now, Kody.”

“You weren’t ready to hear it, and you definitely weren’t ready to accept the reality of what you’re headed toward.”

Who would be? No one in their right mind wanted to be told that they would one day destroy the entire world and everyone who lived in it. That they would kill or cause the death of every being who mattered to them.

And so what if she was right? It still stung that she’d lied to him and kept such a huge secret. “Is that why you came to see me in the hospital after I’d been shot? Were you planning to kill me?”

She looked away. “I was supposed to kill you that first day we met at St. Richard’s.”

That news floored him and flooded him with memories. Even now, he could visualize her clearly that day in his mind when he’d first seen her standing in the office—it seemed like a lifetime ago. She’d looked like a vision. So sweet and innocent. Confused by her new school, or so he’d thought. Meanwhile, there she’d been with the intent of ending his life. “Why didn’t you?”

She laughed bitterly before she met his gaze. “You were so not what I thought you’d be. I went there expecting a cruel Malachai to battle to the death. Someone like Stone.” The bully who’d caused him to be sent to the office. “And instead I found a sweet, bashful, respectful boy who wore the tackiest shirt imaginable just to make his mother happy and not hurt her feelings, even though everyone else mocked him for it. One who gladly took a beating to protect his saintly mother’s reputation. An innocent soul who found humor at the worst of times and who held himself up with hard-won pride even when everyone else was relentlessly trying to knock you down. You have inside you a purity that is so rare. The capacity to love unconditionally and completely. In spite of what you are, and as unbelievable as it is, you are truly decent.”

Swallowing hard, she wiped at her eyes. “Gah, it gets so confusing for me. I just can’t reconcile the creature I know you will become—the heartless beast I have battled—with the man you are, here and now.”

Savitar handed her a tissue. “Life hammers us all. Too many times we become things we never thought we’d be. For many reasons.”

Kody drew a ragged breath as Nick pulled her against him and held her.

He buried his face in her hair and inhaled the sweet, precious scent. “But now that I know, Kody, I won’t hurt you. How could I?”

She shook her head. “You don’t understand, Nick. When your blood takes over you, you won’t be able to stop. The Malachai will control you, not the other way around. If you could stop it, I wouldn’t be here. I’d be snatched back to my time to live out the life I should have had. But the mere fact that I continue to exist as a ghost says that you will ultimately kill me.”

“I refuse to accept that.”

She patted his chest. “You are ever a stubborn Cajun.”

“Dat right,
cher
. Born on da bayou, with boudin in one hand and gumbo in the other, and riding a gator.”

That succeeded in getting her to laugh. “You were born on Menyara’s couch and you hate those stereotypes.”

“Yeah, but I am proud to be Cajun and I happily embrace my stereotype … sometimes.”

Bubba shook his head. “It is so disconcerting to hear a stranger speaking out of my son’s body. Talking about things I know my boy has never seen or done. How are
you
coping with this?” he asked Kody.

She straightened up in the seat. “I don’t see your son when I look at him, Michael. I see the lunatic I’m in love with. Blue eyes, dark hair, big ears, and a goofy grin ringed by dimples.”

Nick gasped in indignation. “I don’t have big ears.”

“Yeah, you do.” She reached up to touch one. “Not in this body, but the one at home … total Dumbo. You really don’t need your wings to fly. You could just wiggle the ears and catch a breeze.”

He pretended to be wounded by her teasing. “Now that’s just cruel, woman.”

With an innocent expression, she held her hands up to her ears and waved her fingers like wings.

Savitar rolled his eyes. “You know what truly terrifies me, Michael?”

“Very little?”

“Well, yeah … that’s true. But for the moment, it’s the fact that the fate of the entire universe rests in
their
hands.” He shifted his gaze to Kody. “You really should do us all a favor and end him while you can.”

She scoffed at words that seriously offended Nick. “Don’t take it to heart, hon. Savitar had a chance to kill you himself and instead, he taught you how to surf.”

Savitar screwed his face up as if surfing was the most repugnant thing he could imagine. “Surf?”

She nodded. “I asked you once why you didn’t kill Nick during the two years he spent with you on your island, and you know what you said?”

“I’m an idiot?”

“No,” she said with a laugh. “You told me it wasn’t your place or his time. That he still had good he needed to do and that if you’d killed him then, people you love would have suffered because Nick wouldn’t have been there to help them when they needed it. But what you didn’t say was what my father told me later. That in spite of all your denials and gruffness, you, like my father, carry hope. You curse it, but for whatever reason, no matter what the world does to you, you can’t let it go.”

Savitar made a sound of ultimate disgust. “I take back what I said. Your father’s the idiot.”

“No, he wasn’t. He was the most intelligent man I’ve ever known. Even
you
respected him, Mr. Hostile.”

“And I find that impossible to believe.”

Nick took a moment to study Savitar. He knew from his future self that Savitar would be important to him one day. But he didn’t know when or why. Only that this was an extremely powerful being.

A shiver went over him as he leaned to whisper in Kody’s ear. “Are you sure Savitar is on our side?”

“I can hear you, kid,” Savitar growled. “And yeah. I’m on your side.”

“Just checking. My other former allies turned out to be myths. And you,” Nick said to Bubba, “are supposed to be in a meeting right now.”

“I
was
in a meeting when the priest called. With Savitar, who was explaining you and Kody to me.”

Nick scowled. “You already knew Savitar?”

The men exchanged an amused look.

“Yeah,” Bubba said. “For a long time now. We’ve headed off many a Daimon invasion.”

That was an interesting turn Nick hadn’t expected. “So you’re as crazy here as you are in my world?”

Kody laughed. “No. Michael’s much more sane here, but he does stalk the night, protecting what he loves … with Mark.”

“What about Mom? Does she know any of this?”

Bubba shook his head. “I’ve kept all my nocturnal activities away from you and your mom. After the way she reacted when we were attacked years ago, I knew better than to let her in on anything me and Mark do. Not to mention, I didn’t want to endanger either of you.”

“What attack?” Nick asked.

“When you … or rather my son, was a baby, y’all were at home alone. I came in just as the Daimon grabbed your mother. I fought him off, but she had a hard time coping with what had happened. With the fact that her attacker wasn’t human. But after that, I knew I couldn’t just stand by and do nothing while those creatures ran loose on innocent people. Sometimes, you’ve just got to take a stand. For yourself and for others.”

Nick smiled. “You’ve said that last bit to me a lot over the years … that and don’t double tap when you can pull a triple.”

“And that you’d rather be judged by twelve than carried by six,” Kody chimed in.

Savitar snorted. “Sounds like you’re basically the same in both worlds.”

“I guess so,” Bubba drawled. “Dang, and here I always thought I was original. One of a kind.”

While they drove through the city, Nick wondered if that event Bubba had described was what had killed Bubba’s family in his world. When Kody had told him Bubba’s wife and son had been murdered, he’d assumed the assailant had been human. But if it’d been something supernatural …

It would definitely explain a lot about Nick’s favorite lunatic.

As they turned onto Ursulines, the sky above them darkened with clouds. And it came on fast.

They collectively sucked in their breaths.

“That’s bad, isn’t it?” Nick asked.

Kody nodded an instant before lightning struck their SUV and sent it careening. To Bubba’s credit, he kept it upright, but it was toast as they came to a harsh stop, and barely missed hitting a parked car by the breadth of a hand. Bubba tried to start the engine.

It wouldn’t even turn over.

Nick ground his teeth as he heard an all-too-familiar sound from far away. One that was drawing nearer. “Please, someone, tell me those aren’t wings.”

“We can say that, but we’d be lying.” Savitar opened the door and sent a blast of fire into the air.

Nick unbuckled his belt and opened his door. “Can we make it to Sanctuary?”

Kody shook her head. “There’s no Sanctuary here, Nick.”

His jaw went slack with her news. No. It wasn’t possible. How could there not be a Sanctuary in New Orleans? “What?”

“They don’t have Were-Hunters in this realm.”

He was even more aghast. “None? Seriously?”

“None,” Savitar repeated as he grabbed Nick from the SUV and shoved him toward the curb. “Michael, get the kids to the convent. I’ll cover you.”

Bubba pulled out a gun the likes of which Nick had never seen before as they ran down the street. Nick looked up at the dark sky and gaped at the sight of a thousand winged demons that were headed straight at them.