She tried her best to home in on the image, but it was gone almost as fast as it appeared. Still, it left her with one thing that was undeniable, and it explained a lot about his idiosyncrasies.
“You’re not just a demon. You’re a demigod.”
Caleb went perfectly still, then he relaxed. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Yeah, you do,” she said, her voice rising at the end with bitter amusement. “That’s what Acheron meant when he said you were similar creatures.”
Caleb scoffed. “I’m
nothing
like him. He’s cut from a very different bolt.”
Maybe, but that brought her back to their original topic. “What you said about Adarian doesn’t make sense. I thought he wanted Nick protected.”
“That’s what he told me originally.”
“Then why do you doubt him now?”
Caleb shrugged. “There’s no reason to. And yet … He’s coming for him. Soon. I can’t tell you the exact minute. Or even the day it’ll happen, but I can feel it building like a simmering pot getting ready to boil over.”
While she didn’t welcome that news, it didn’t really disturb her. “We’ll stop him when he does.” They had to.
“No, Kody,” he said drily. “We won’t. You and I don’t have the ability to defeat him. And I know this for a fact. The one and only time in my entire military career that I was knocked flat on my rump and viciously defeated was by the first of the Malachais. One who didn’t possess a third of the power of the current elder Malachai. When Adarian comes, Nick will die. There’s nothing you and I can do to stop him.”
She didn’t believe that for a minute. “Nick can’t die. We cannot allow that to happen under
any
circumstance. I know you see what I do. The next Malachai—”
“Will free Noir from his hole, and rain a complete slaughter down on all of us. But there is something even worse than that outcome.”
In that instant, she could swear she had an ulcer—even though it was an impossibility for her species.
I don’t want to hear this.
But she had no choice. If something was out there worse than their next enemy, she had to know about it.
Forewarned was forearmed.
“What?”
“Adarian doesn’t have to
kill
Nick. He can
absorb
him.”
Her throat went dry at the horror of
that
thought. Whenever a creature like them absorbed the powers of another, they took all of their powers and strengths, and combined them with the ones they already had.
Should that happen …
The Malachai wouldn’t kill them. Oh no. That would be too kind. They would all become the outlet for his voracious cruelty.
And the
only
one who could fight Adarian successfully and possibly defeat him was currently in a chemically induced coma.…
I might as well get a tattoo on my forehead. Abandon hope all ye who see this ‘cause we’re about to get royally screwed.
Nick couldn’t see anything. He felt like he’d been swallowed whole by darkness. It was so thick and stifling that it made it hard to breathe.
Where am I?
The last thing he remembered was Kody holding on to his leg in the ambulance while she talked to the attending EMT. Everything else was a total blur.
Am I dead?
Where would a dead Catholic Malachai spend eternity, anyway? That was a scary and sobering thought. And a question he didn’t
ever
want to have an answer for.
All right, if I’m not dead, the next baboon who hits me with a board is going to get it shoved someplace real uncomfortable on his body.
In fact, Nick would turn his attacker into a human or demon Popsicle with it.
Yeah, that’d learn them.
Smelling something rancid in the thick opaque air, he grimaced and held the back of his hand to his nose to try and block it. Gah, what was
that
? Smelled worse than burned powdered eggs, and he’d mistakenly thought nothing could outdo those. Well, nothing other than the one and only time he’d made the mistake of walking into the men’s restroom as Stone was walking out of it.
Oh yeah,
that
was definitely worse than this. He didn’t know what werewolves ate on a regular basis, but whatever it was, it rotted them from the inside out. No wonder Stone had perpetual PMS.
“Hello, there!”
He jumped at the unexpected voice coming from something that was within touching distance. “Excuse me?”
“I said, ‘hello.’ Do you not know that word? Do you not speak English?”
Not sure what to make of the strange voice, Nick stepped back from it. “I’m not sure how to respond to that. But I do speak English … most days and I understand you and the word ‘hello’.”
“Ah,” the disembodied voice said as if relieved, then he added, “I am speaking English, right?”
Nick scowled. “Um … yeah. Pretty sure.”
“Good. Sometimes it’s hard to tell. Languages come and they go. Sometimes I know them, sometimes—”
“Who are you?” Nick asked, interrupting him. “Where are we?”
“Which is it?” the stranger asked in an exasperated tone. “Who or where? Might as well throw a what in there too, just to hit all the bases. Oh, and I forgot how and why. That is all of them. At least I think it is.”
The voice paused, then counted them off. “Who, what, when, where, how, and why. Yes, that’s all of them,” he said proudly, then his tone turned to one of fretful anxiety. “Though the answer to some of them, I don’t know. Like how did you get here when you don’t know where here is? That’s kind of hard to do, isn’t it? I mean if you went someplace, shouldn’t you know how you got there and then by default, you should know where the where is because you got yourself there. Right?”
Nick felt like he’d blindly stumbled into a Who’s On First skit. Whoever this guy was, he wasn’t firing on all burners. Dude was seriously listing to port and about to capsize.
“Nor do I know why you’re here,” he continued without even stopping to take a breath. “That baffles me, too, if you don’t know where you are. Why would you go someplace when you don’t know where it is? And people call me names. At least I know where I am and who I’m talking to, and I never go anyplace without knowing beforehand where it is I’ve gone. Or at least where I was trying to get to. Except for this one time … we won’t go there. Not because I don’t know where it leads. I do. It leads to a bad memory I’ve no wish to revisit. Kind of like smelly relatives and nasty bosses. I don’t want to revisit them either, unless it’s to give them nightmares. In that case, game on.”
Nick gaped the whole way through his tirade. Yeah … This was the strangest person he’d ever met, and when you took into consideration that the captain of his football team was a werewolf, his boss an immortal vampire slayer who had a ninja-like, knife-wielding housekeeper, his tutor was Death, his best friend a demon, and his girlfriend something else entirely, and then there was the Simi …
Yeah, boy. Nick knew every variation of weird even when it didn’t slap him in the face. Most days, he was drowning in it.
But this guy …
He took weird to a level all his own.
When he finally paused for a breath, Nick quickly interjected, “How about starting with the first and then answering the latter?”
“Why didn’t you say so? I declare … some people are so strange. My name is Asmodeus. And you’re home. Did you not know that?”
Nick scoffed. “Dude, this is not my home. For one thing, my house isn’t this dark, even when my mama gets cheap and refuses to use lights in it. Bourbon Street ain’t
ever
this dark.”
Asmodeus made a sound of disgust. “Can’t you see in the dark?”
Was the guy totally off his gourd? No one could see in something
this
dark. “Dang it, Jim, I’m not a bat. I’m a boy.”
“Okay…” he stretched the word out. “My name’s not Jim. I just told you, it’s Asmodeus. And why can’t you see in the dark?”
Obviously not a
Star Trek
fan. But why would he even begin to think that Nick could see in pitch-black nothing? “Not really.”
“Hmmm. Odd. Okay.” He took Nick’s hand.
Nick pulled back. “Dude, don’t touch me.”
“Why not?”
Why not? Really? He had to explain stranger-danger and personal space? Where did this guy live that he didn’t understand grabbing another dude’s body parts without an invitation was a first class ticket to a major butt-whipping event.
“Look, I don’t know you, and we’re not dating. So keep your hands off me.”
Again with the annoyed noise. “Then how can I lead you if I can’t touch you when you can’t see?”
“How ’bout you don’t lead me anywhere?” Nick was beginning to like the darkness. Unlike Asmodeus, it was quiet and rather peaceful. And it definitely didn’t give him a headache.
“But you said you couldn’t see.”
Nick was aghast at the way this guy’s mind worked. “That doesn’t mean you can touch me.”
“I’m so confused.”
That made two of them. Obviously, this place had a whole different code of conduct than what he was used to.
All of a sudden, someone grabbed Nick from behind and hauled him backward.
“What are you doing here?” the man snarled in his ear.
Anger set fire to Nick’s blood and sent it thrumming through his veins like molten lava. His mother was the only one who used a tone that angry with him.
And occasionally Kyrian.
Menyara and Rosa from time to time. And he really should add Talon, though the Celt did better than most.
His teachers and principal, of course. He definitely couldn’t leave them out..
Yeah, okay, so he ticked a lot of people off. But …
“Dude, I don’t know you. I dang sure don’t have to answer you.”
“Dude,” the voice said in a mocking tone with pauses between the words as the man did a bad Valley girl imitation. “I’m like so gonna kick your annoying ass.”
Nick stiffened as he assumed his Cock of the Walk stance that said he was ready to battle. “I’d like to see you try.”
The man shot through the darkness so fast that Nick didn’t hear or feel him moving until he had Nick by the throat. “Word to the wise, punk. Don’t dare someone until you know who and what you’re dealing with, and what they’re capable of. You’ll live a lot longer, and stay in one piece, if you memorize that. Trust me.”
“Trust you?” Nick choked out through his constricted throat. “I don’t even know what species you are.”
“Precisely my point.” He let go of Nick and stepped back.
One second they were in the dark, in the next, they were inside a room that looked like something out of the Middle Ages. There was a fireplace so big that Nick could easily walk into it and have a spread out brunch for three people. Two comfortable-looking chairs with giant wings were set in front of it, over a lion-skin rug he was pretty sure had blood and bite marks still on it. In the far corner was a black desk that had ornate skeletal carvings on the wood.
And the man …
Not what Nick had expected at all. He looked like a banker or stock broker or something … Normal. Dressed in an elegant navy pinstriped, double-breasted suit, his shirt was crisp and white with a bloodred tie that flashed with something Nick would swear was living skulls inside the fabric. His dark blond hair was slicked back from his handsome face. But it was his eyes that were terrifying. Cold. Merciless. Mean. It was like looking at Death, and since Death tutored him, he ought to know it when he saw it. A frigid green, his eyes were so clear that they gave the illusion of glowing.
Asmodeus was a little more typical. Spiked white hair framed an impish face. His gray eyes showed exactly how mischievous he could be. And he glanced around the room as if he’d never seen it before.
“Who are
you
?” Nick asked the man in the suit.
A wry smile curved his lips. “I’ve been called many things by many people. But those who want to live usually refer to me as Thorn. And they do so in a reverent tone.”
Not a soothing name by any means. Ranked up there with the Dark-Hunter named Venom, and Venom was definitely not someone you wanted to mess with, either. “What are you?”
Thorn quirked an offbeat, wry grin. “That’s easy … and yet so complicated that I have no wish to venture there with
you
. Suffice it to say, I’m a carbon-based life form. And I’m one of the deadliest things that call the shadows home. And you, Malachai, are in a place you shouldn’t be.”
“And that is?”
“Azmodea.”
Nick felt ill with that knowledge. How the heck did he get
here
? Like Asmodeus had said, how could someone go someplace and have no clue how they got there?
Asmodeus grinned. “Unfortunately, it’s not named after me. Rather, I’m named after it. That part kind of blows. Got me bullied a lot as a small demon. Really hasn’t helped my adulthood all that much either. And when it comes to females, I’d really like to find my father and repay him for this hideous name he stuck me with.”
Thorn held his hand up in a dismissive gesture. “Demon, go home or shut up. If you continue to annoy me, you’ll be a stain on my floor. Understood?”
Asmodeus nodded.
Nick was still trying to make sense of everything. “I don’t understand. How did I get here?”
Thorn placed his hand on Nick’s shoulder again. In the next heartbeat, his eyes flashed silver, then red, and settled on a hazel brown. “Nick, your body is lying unconscious on a hospital bed. I cannot stress to you enough that you can’t let yourself do that. Ever. Under any circumstances.”
“What do you mean? I can’t sleep?” That would stink. He had visions of
Nightmare on Elm Street
dancing in his head. Now where was a sugarplum when you needed one?
Releasing him, Thorn laughed. “That could be entertaining. A Malachai with hallucinations brought on by sleep deprivation. But no. Sleep is different. You’re still in the world of man when you slumber. Half in, half out. Any little disturbance will wake you, and snatch you back to the conscious realm. However, when you’re medically unconscious, you’re beyond the realm of man and are fully on this side of the Nether Realm. Without being anchored in the human realm, your geist, or essence, rather, will automatically bring you here to serve your master. It’s also why you can’t ever take drugs or drink alcohol, my friend. The minute you lose control of yourself and alter your mental state, you open yourself up for others to manipulate and harm you.”