Instinct (9 page)

Grim also knew that his father was dead. That Nick had come into his full Malachai powers. Though he should be subservient to the Malachai, that really wasn't their relationship.

Death had a massive superiority complex where Nick was concerned.

Even so, it didn't quite add up. Up until now, Grim had been casually insulting and somewhat helpful.

Nick glanced back at the murder of crows that was eyeballing them through the barrier. “But why snatch her and then send those”—he jerked his chin at the crows—“after me? It's not like he doesn't have my phone number. Literally. Had he called, I'm dumb enough to have met him somewhere without the theatrics.”

Xev's scowl deepened as the crows moved to sit on the sills of the building as if waiting for something specific to happen. It was so creepy, it made the hair on the back of Nick's neck stand on end.

The ancient god stepped back and paled even more.

Her own features paling, Kody bit her lip at the way Xev reacted to them. “What is it?”

He moved closer to the window, then fell back again. “They're Memitim.”

“Mem-a-who?” Nick asked.

“Memitim. They were the soldiers used against Arelim.” He turned to face Nick. “Back in the day, they were under the command of Malphas. They were his army.”

“I don't understand.”

“Long before Caleb met his wife and decided to live the life of a peaceful farmer, he fought with my mother and
his
against our father. He was one of the Mavromino's greatest and strongest generals. The Memitim were his soldiers that he used against the Kalosum. After centuries of warring against us and laying waste to mankind, he switched sides because of his wife and swore off his sword forever. When the Memitim went after him and refused to let him live in peace, he single-handedly put them down, and they swore vengeance upon him. These are their spirits and they're here to make good on their vow.” His gaze burned into Nick. “Someone resurrected them for their revenge.”

“How do you know that?”

“You're the Malachai. Listen to them and you can hear it in their cries.”

Nick tilted his head as he closed his eyes and did what Xev said. He opened up the part of himself that honestly terrified him. Anytime he tapped those powers, there was always a part of his heart scared that he wouldn't make it back to be normal again. A part scared that he'd be lost to the darkness forever.

But Xev was right. He could hear them now.

Malphas! We've come for you! It's time for you to pay for what you've done! Come out and face us, you craven dog!

Nick almost told them he wasn't here, that they had the wrong address, then caught himself. Better they stay misinformed. So long as they were surrounding the wrong building, they wouldn't be trying to break into the right one and kill his friend.

Yet one thing he knew for certain. Those crazy, batty crows weren't going anywhere. Not until they had Caleb's heart in their bloody little beaks.

And they had no intention of allowing anyone else to leave the building, either. Something proven when one of the cops tried, and the birds descended on him like a bunch of winged piranhas.

People screamed as two cops shot at the birds in an attempt to drive them off their colleague.

While they were distracted, Nick opened the door to return to his individual condo unit and let Xev and Kody in before they got caught in the cross fire.

Kody stepped away from the door. “I don't understand. If the Memitim want revenge on Caleb, why are they
here
? Shouldn't they be at Caleb's?”

Xev shrugged. “His most recent scent would have been at your school or on Nick. It must be what they locked on to and followed when they were freed. Since they're carrion spirits, they can't come into this building because it's protected. And they can't find him because Nick teleported him to his home, correct?”

“Yeah.”

“Then Caleb should be safe. For now.”

“Again with the
should,
” Nick mumbled. “Really hate that word.”

Ignoring his comment, Kody crossed her arms over her chest. “Could they have made Caleb sick?”

“You're focused on the wrong concern.” Xev stepped away from them.

“Meaning?”

Xev looked past her shoulder to the window, where more crows were gathering. “It's not whether or not they carried the illness that should concern you. It's who opened the hell-gate that unleashed them.”

 

CHAPTER 6

Nick grimaced at Xev's dire words. “Dude, if my gut draws any tighter, I'm going to pass a diamond soon. So what hell-gate doth thou mean now, my lord demon? Or is it demon lord?”

Xev ignored his sarcasm. “You should know, since you're part of the u
Å¡
umgallu that controls them. Or, more to the point, the head of the beast.”

“Yes, but see, in the midst of my learning all about econ, biology, locker combinations, and American history, they foolishly ignored and neglected this part of my most vital education, and so I'm seriously lacking. Please, do catch me up before any more loathsome creatures come perching on my sill, and singing me such lovely death serenades.”

Xev ignored his sarcasm. “You know the story of Pandora's Box?”

“Yeah?”

“It wasn't a box or a jar the curious human opened that unleashed those ill spirits into this world. It was a living membrane she ruptured that could never again be closed or healed. That's why Death, Bane, and War are always in this realm with humanity. Why no one can defeat them or banish them completely. Not even I.”

Sighing wearily, Xev closed the curtains to block the crows from seeing into the condo and spying on them. “Because of one woman's defiance of a divine order, mankind was forever condemned to suffer them and their cruelty, with no way to fully banish them from this human plane. Think of it as the eleventh hour for Man. Forever walking hand in hand with their own destruction and death. With humanity's only tenuous hope for salvation being this terrifying thing we call free will. When the first woman so innocently and blindly gave birth to those three, she unknowingly damned this world to disease, war, and death. To the eternal battle for this middle ground and the fate of all humanity. But … thanks to the gods who care about her kind and who took pity on them, the other four Snake
Å¡
arras or chieftains remain supernally bound and contained. Restrained. Each with their own malevolent group they uniquely control as pawns in this eternal war to the one suzerain who leads them.”

Kody inclined her head to Nick. “The Malachai.” Together with his six main leaders, or generals, they made up the u
Å¡
umgallu.

Xev nodded. “And Nick, alone, can open the supernal realms and unleash the demons en masse into this world to take possession of it. The Malachai is also the only being who can summon the three of us from our prisons. Me. Livia and Yrre.” The eternal balance. Three of the u
Å¡
umgallu remained in this world—War, Bane, and Death—while the other three remained in stasis. “No one save the Malachai can ever unlock our gates. But it's not an easy task.”

Nick frowned. “I've wondered about that. Why has no Malachai before me ever let you guys out?”

“For many reasons. One, it's too draining for the Malachai. There's always a risk that as soon as he frees us, one of us or another might kill him before he recovers enough strength to protect himself. Remember, he's usually a child when he inherits his powers and he can't really control us. If he combines us, it would be easy for us to join together to kill or enslave him. So, the best thing for a Malachai to do is to always put us down … like a rabid dog, as soon as he takes his father's life. Never give one of us a chance to go for your jugular. We will take it.”

Nick glanced to Kody as a chill went down his spine. He knew how little regard and love Grim and Laguerre had for him, most days. He could only imagine how awful it would be to fall under their “benevolent” control. “Why are you warning me about your friends?”

Xev rubbed at his brow as if he had a sudden migraine. Or possible brain tumor. “To begin with, they're no friends of mine. While I did share kinship with the original Malachai, we were born centuries apart. With the exception of you, I've only met a Malachai long enough for him to yank me from my hole, drain my powers, and return me to hell to recharge until the next
fun
summoning. As for the other
Å¡
arras, we were enemies in wars where I took great pleasure in kicking their collective asses, so I barely tolerate
them
.” He straightened to glare imperiously at Nick. “I was born the son of Verlyn and Azura, and fostered by Inari. Have you
any
idea of the power I once wielded?”

Yeah, that would have been a lot.

Xev passed a bitterly amused glance to Kody. “To give you an inkling, Gautier, I was the only ancient god born who could kill a Chthonian.”

Nick's jaw dropped at that. The Chthonians were virtually extinct now, but at one time, they had been a race of god-killers who had once waged their own war against Xev's breed. “Seriously?”

“Seriously. And all that power did was make me a target to everyone around me … for one reason or another. It never once brought me any kind of happiness.” His gaze burned into Nick with his sincerity. “I don't want to be you, Malachai. Hunted. Hated. Friendless. Without haven. I don't want to be a part of this world … or of anything, for that matter. I'm done with it all.”

Xev's gaze hesitated at a picture on the wall of Nick's Confirmation, where he stood beside his mother outside of St. Louis Cathedral. His eyes flashed red. “I will help you get your mother back for the same reason I saved Nekoda. You were kind to me and I don't believe in repaying kindness with cruelty. But honestly? All I want is to be left alone and forgotten. I have no use for this world. And even less for you.”

Nick frowned. “You really want me to send you back?”

He rubbed at his arm where the ancient symbols of his curse were branded. “When you've lived without kindness for as long as I have, it becomes its own form of cruelty. It stings in its own unique way.”

Nick despised the fact that he knew exactly what Xev meant by that. It was the same suspiciousness he had whenever someone complimented him. He was so used to being insulted that if, by some miracle, he actually got a compliment from someone, he analyzed it over and over to see if it was somehow a veiled insult instead.

How sad was that?

But he couldn't help it. The world had predisposed him to expect meanness from strangers. It shouldn't be that way. But it was. It was why Nick went out of his way to try and make people feel appreciated and important. Especially those others tended to overlook—streetcar drivers, doormen, vendors, janitors, bathroom attendants, maids. Hobos.

Everyone mattered.

Kody swallowed hard. “Can I ask a personal question?”

Xev shrugged. “Sure.”

“Given that amount of power you were born with … how did they ever capture you?”

Agony swam in the hazel depths of Xev's rust-colored eyes. His features turned to stone as a single tear slid down his cheek. “There's the bitterest irony of all. They unknowingly sent the only warrior after me I would never harm.”

“Who?” Nick asked.

“The one life I wouldn't take.”

“And that was?”

“A life that mattered more to me than my own.”

Nick sighed as he passed an irritated grimace to Kody and gave up on the never-ending hamster wheel loop of madness. It was obvious that even now, Xev had no inclination of sharing that identity with anyone. Whoever it was, he intended to let no one use them to hurt him again.

He could respect that, too.

Given that, Nick changed the subject. “So which of the gates do you control in this smorgasbord of fun-filled nightmarish holocaust?”

“The prison realms of the cursed gods. Both good and bad. I can bring them all back into play and return them to war against each other.”

Kody gestured toward the window. “And the Memitim? Who holds their key?”

“The souls of the dead are controlled by Yrre. She's the one who would have unleashed them against Caleb.”

Kody went pale. “Nick saw her earlier.”

“What?”

Nick nodded. “In the hallway at school. Right before Caleb got sick.”

“And neither of you mentioned it before now?” His tone betrayed his outrage.

“I thought I was hallucinating.”

Xev arched one arctic blue brow. “You do that a lot?”

“Here lately? More than I want to cop to. Let us not forget that I
just
got back from an alternate universe. While I like to think I'm adjusting pretty well to that, I do still have some lingering issues.”

Xev cursed under his breath.

“But the gates were sealed shut after his father died,” Kody insisted. “Caleb wouldn't have made that mistake. He knows the severity of those consequences.”

Xev ignored her outburst. “Are there any other hallucinations I need to be aware of?”

“Aside from you—the cat that drinks up all my milk in the middle of the night while I sleep—suicide crows, ghost riders in the school hallway, killer mosquitos, and plague doctors, I think we're covered. Unless you want to count the rampaging teenage werewolves.” He glanced over to Kody. “Oh, and the ghost girlfriend, of course.”

“Plague doctors?” Xev scowled. “What are plague doctors?”

Nick snorted. “That's all you got out of my rant? Really?”

Kody ignored him. “
Zeitj
ä
gers
.”

“Why were they there?”

Shaking his head, Nick shrugged. “No idea. They didn't exactly speak. Just stared at me like my mom at a parent-teacher conference where I royally screwed up. And speaking of, none of this is getting me closer to my mom. I'm thinking we should go see Mark and find out what happened, as soon as possible.” He peeked through the curtains. “So how do we get rid of or through psycho Daffy Duck out there?”