His heart stopped. Caleb looked so dead. His normally dark olive complexion had a bluish-gray cast to it.
Please. Please, don't have died. He really wasn't ready to say good-bye to his friend.
Not like this.
Nick approached the bed slowly and cautiously. There was no telling what could be going on. Terrified, he reached his hand out to check Caleb's breathing. It was faint, but it was still there.
Overwhelmed with relief, Nick sank to his knees by the bed and whispered a grateful prayer. "Hang in there, buddy. I'm going to find an answer for this. And get you right back on your feet. I promise."
He had no idea how, but there had to be some way to cure it. Some way to restore Caleb. It had to be a spell or curse or rabid dog hair, or something odd that was causing this. And if it was, then it could be undone.
Rising, he returned to Livia and Zavid, who waited at the bedroom door. "Watch him and make sure nothing else happens to him."
Zavid caught Nick's arm. "Where are you going?"
"To find a cure."
"And if you can't?" Livia asked.
Nick glanced back at Caleb and in his mind he saw the future where he lost everyone he loved. Saw himself standing alone, surrounded by flames and destruction. It was a future he refused to embrace.
His genetics, family, and birth would never define his fate. Only he would control his destiny. Not the gods and not some bullshit prophecy.
He met Livia's gaze and answered her question with every bit of Cajun stubbornness he possessed. "I will save him from this. Whatever it takes. Caleb has fought too many battles for me for me to turn my back on him now."
Zavid inclined his head respectfully to Nick. "I'll guard him with everything I have."
"Thanks. I'll be back as soon as I can."
Determined, Nick returned to school. He left the bathroom to find Kody still waiting for him in the hallway.
She glanced around Nick's shoulder, to the door. Then scowled. "Did you leave him in there?"
"Flashed him home."
She let out a relieved breath. "How's he doing?"
"Not good. He's in a coma or something."
Gaping in disbelief, she paled. "What? How is that possible?"
Nick shrugged. "I don't know. What do we do, Kody? I don't even have a clue on how to start to make him better."
"Me neither. I've never heard of this. What did Zavid and Liv say?"
"Demons don't get sick."
"They're right."
Nick glanced to the door where the rider had vanished before homeroom. "Did you see or feel anything earlier?"
"What do you mean?"
"Before class started? When you were trying to get my attention? I saw a rider on a black horse with scales come tearing down the hallway. He rode straight through me and out the door that was flung open for no reason."
She arched a brow at what he was saying. "Yrre? You saw Yrre? Here in the hallway?"
He shrugged. "I guess. Was that Yrre?"
"Dressed all in white?"
"Yeah."
She nodded slowly. "But Yrre isn't a guy. It's a woman."
"Oh. I didn't get that. I couldn't see a face or body shape. All I saw was the horse and the robes and scales.... You think she had something to do with this?"
Kody took a minute to consider that before she answered. "You and Caleb closed the gate, right? You sealed everything?"
"Caleb said we did."
"Then there's no way Yrre could be free. The usumgallu can't assemble and ride without the Malachai to lead them. You're their head and they need your blood to rise.... I think it must have been another of your visions. It's probably why you didn't know she was a woman and couldn't see her face. Maybe she was trying to reach out to you to get you to free her?"
That made sense, then. And she was right. In the past, Nick had always seen the riders in their true forms. Bane, Laguerre, and he was on first-name basis with Grim. They had come up to him as flesh-and-blood beings, not as the Ghost Rider of St. Richard's Before the Bell.
But something was attacking Caleb. Something that was out to harm them all.
"You think it might be a sickness the Arelim sent to weaken him and get back at me?" An ancient society of divine protectors for humans, the Arelim were charged with maintaining order and ensuring that the Malachai demon remained dormant. Unfortunately, some of them had decided the best way to do that was to kill off Nick before he came into his full Malachai powers. They were the ones who'd originally resurrected Nekoda after her death in a future battle, and had sent her back in time to kill him before he matured.
Now that he had inherited his father's powers, they wanted him dead before he mastered any more of them. And because Kody had blatantly refused to carry out her assassination orders, she wasn't on good terms with them anymore, either.
Their rebel sect wanted her dead as much as they did him.
Kody shook her head. "If they were able to do that to Caleb, they'd have gone after you instead."
Everything kept coming back to that one basic oh-so-testicle-shriveling fact. While the Arelim were in the middle of a bloody civil war, Nick was the number-one target for the rebels. They'd give anything to lay hands to him.
Kody was right. If they had something powerful enough to take down Caleb, they wouldn't have wasted it on Nick's protector.
They'd have unleashed it on Nick and taken his head as their trophy.
"This day just couldn't get any stranger." No sooner had those words left his lips than the lights went out in the school and the building shook as a loud clap of thunder sounded right before hail pelted down.
Hard.
"Nick ... you've got to quit saying such things."
"Yeah. If--"
Kody covered his mouth with her hands before he could speak another word. "I'm not kidding. You are one of the handful of beings who can call down Armageddon, and from the looks of things, you just did it. Congrats. Now, until we have more information, you should probably play mute."
That was good advice.
For once, he'd take it.
At first, Nick just thought the storm he'd seen earlier had arrived. But there was something ominous about this one. A heaviness to the air that wasn't quite right. Every part of him sensed it. And he wasn't alone. Everyone in the school seemed to be on edge, all of a sudden.
As the storm picked up volume, and the hail started striking the old brick building with enough force to shatter windows, teachers brought students out to the hallway in a tornado-style drill.
Nick slid his gaze to Kody. "You know, I've been through more than my fair share of hurricanes and tornadoes.... I ain't never heard anything like this. What about you?"
"Sounds Apocalyptic."
And since she'd been through one or two of them, she'd know.
She gave him a hard stare. "When you and Caleb closed the hell-gate and released your father's powers, you are sure you sealed it properly? Right?" she asked again.
He gave her a droll stare. "Are you seriously asking me if I said all the words? 'Cause yeah, I basically said it. Yeah. Almost in the right order. With all the right syllables."
She rolled her eyes at his play on one of his favorite movies, Army of Darkness, that he'd made her see enough times that she now groaned out loud at the mere suggestion of it. "Yeah, it was definitely an N word ... necktie ... nickel ... nectar."
"Nekoda."
"Not funny ... Nick."
"Yeah, I know. I suck as a dung-eating boyfriend."
Kody snorted. "No. There, you don't. Other departments..." She rocked her hand at him.
"Thanks."
She flashed an attractive grin and winked. "Any time, baby. Any time. Hail to the queen."
Suddenly, Stone started making a low howling noise from where he stood with his class, lined up against the opposite wall. And he wasn't the only one. Mason. Alex. Justin.
Every one of the shape-shifters. They were all but whining and barking.
This just keeps getting better and better.
The teachers and staff who doubled as Squires, and knew about the preternatural students, began to get nervous that the shape-shifters were about to expose themselves to the "baretos" or normal humans who knew nothing about the supernatural world that coexisted with them and attended St. Richard's. The Squires were all charged with protecting and concealing the identity and existence of the Were-Hunters.
"Attention, students!" Mr. Head said over a bullhorn as he walked down the hallway. "Your teachers will be dividing you into groups for either the cafeteria or the gym until such a time as we have power restored. Please move quickly and quietly to your assigned area."
Nice. Good way to divide out the student body without the baretos being the wiser. This way if something caused the preters to break into their animal bodies, it wouldn't freak out or endanger the uninitiated. Or betray the existence of the Were-Hunters.
Unfortunately, because the staff members didn't know better and had no idea she was actually a corporeal ghost, Kody was placed in the baretos group. Nick, who worked part time as a Squire for an immortal warrior, was sent to the gym with the shape-shifters and the humans who knew about them. It was so aggravating to keep secrets. But as much as the humans thought they knew, there was a lot more to this world than even they suspected.
And no one could ever know who or what Nick really was. Not with the bounty on his head. Even a Squire might be tempted to take a shot at him. There were very few he could trust with that knowledge.
As Nick entered the gym, Brynna, whose entire family had been Squires for generations, sidled over to him. "Scary, isn't it?"
"Highly unsettling." Nick glanced over to Stone, who seemed to be struggling to hold on to his human form. He was sweating and shaking. Pale. While the two of them had never gotten along, Nick almost felt sorry for the werewolf.
Nah, not really. Stone was too much of a pack animal bully for that. He enjoyed using his superhuman strength and psychic powers to push others around.
As if on cue, Stone shoved his girlfriend, Casey, back when she moved to check on him, and growled ferociously at her.
Casey screwed her face up as she twisted her arm out of his fierce grip. "Ugh! Hope you die from whatever rabies ails you, Stone."
Stone hissed at her, then grimaced at Nick. "What you looking at, trailer park?"
Not much.
But that made Nick curious about one thing.
"Hey, Bryn ... if the Were-Hunters break into their alternate forms, how much human would be left in them?"
She glanced over to Stone. "In theory, especially in the case of Stone, those who have human hearts would remain cognizant of their behavior and in control of themselves." Her gaze went to Alex Peltier. "Those who are Katagaria..." They were the ones who held animal hearts and weren't as human as their Arcadian cousins.
"Let me guess. We'd be on their menu?"
"Like Brian on Scott," she said, using the name of the football player who'd taken a bite out of his best friend after he'd played Madaug's demon-enchanted Zombie Hunter game. "But we do have enough Squires here that they should be able to quell them before that happens."
"The should in that sentence doesn't inspire a lot of confidence in me."
She laughed before she turned toward LaShonda to discuss homework.
The demon sense inside Nick picked up on something. He wasn't sure what. But he'd learned from past encounters to pay heed to that prickly sensation. It was worse than Spidey sense.
Especially with the weather outside so unnatural while he felt it. It was just such a state as this that had heralded the arrival of Zavid when the Aamon had been sent after him. And not to play Parcheesi and watch videos.
Again, he felt that weird slowdown of time before everything sped up like some kind of computer game lag.
What the heck?
His vision darkened in that peculiar way that let him know he no longer saw the world around him as a human being. He was now viewing the world with his perspicacity.
That wasn't unusual.
Nah. What freaked him was the sight of the odd creatures moving through his classmates and around them as if searching for something very specific. Huge and birdlike, they reminded him of mummified plague doctors that were armed with adamantine sickles and wearing black cavalier hats and saturated in blood.
Invisible to the rest of his class and teachers, they paused and turned in his direction. Then, in the next heartbeat, they headed straight for him.
CHAPTER 3
Ready to battle, Nick stood up on the bleachers as two of Satan's plague doctors came up to sniff at him while four more hung back, unseen and undetected, to float around his classmates like freaked-out Kabuki dancers. The one thing he'd learned over the last couple of years while dealing with preters was to be ready for anything.
But don't start nothing with them until you had to.
Though to be honest, it was really hard to not shove them out of his personal space. Especially when they practically buried their wrapped, bloody beaks in his armpits.
Not to mention the other no-zone of his body they were headed for.
"Nick, don't move."
He saw Kody's ethereal form on his right. What are these things? he projected his thoughts to her.
"Zeitjagers."
I just love it, cher, when you say things like I ought to know what they are.
One of them rudely poked his shoulder.
He barely caught himself before he taught the hideous thing some manners.
"Just relax, Nick. I don't think they're here for you."
Don't think or don't know?
Before Kody could answer, Ms. Pantall stood up to glare at him from the lowest bench. "Nick? Do you have a problem?"
He slid his gaze to the huge sickle that was still coated with the blood of the last victim the demons on each side of him had beheaded. That blood was also smeared all over the bandages and clothes wrapped around the two of them and dripping onto the bleachers.
Yeah, he had two very big, ugly problems.
Unfortunately, his teacher couldn't see either of those problems or the sickles they carried. Probably a good thing she didn't see the blood, for that matter.Nick tried to stay as still as possible. Maybe they were like bulls and only attacked things that moved. "No, ma'am. Just having some growing pains. Trying to stretch them out a bit."
"Sit your butt down, Gautier, or you'll be running drills during practice till you drop!"
Nick cringed at Coach Heffron's sharp bellow. "Yes, sir."
One of the demons pointed at Nick's foul orange shirt and made a noise that sounded suspiciously like laughter before it stepped back and they moved away from him. Great. Even the seriously jacked-up horror movie rejects mocked his wardrobe.
Thanks, Mom. My future therapist will appreciate the business.
Torn between being relieved and offended, Nick sat down.
Kody's astral projection moved to sit next to him. "You okay?"
He gave a subtle nod. Just a little offended. So ... what's a zeitjager? And do they have anything to do with Caleb's sudden onset of projectile vomiting?
"I doubt they have anything to do with Caleb's sickness. My fear is that they might be here for you and they don't know it yet."
Meaning?
"They're time sentinels, Nick. They guard it, monitor it, protect it, and punish those who abuse it."
Another bad feeling went through him as she said that. "Is that why I haven't heard anything from Ambrose?" Ambrose was his future self who had tricked and killed a demon to steal enough power that he could come back in time and try to save the life of his mother and change his destiny so that he didn't destroy the world.
So far, Ambrose had only mucked things up worse.
Together, they were supposed to be trying to unravel this gnarled mess that was Nick's life and future. But it'd been some time since Ambrose had made an appearance. The last time Nick had seen him, Ambrose had confessed that he was on the brink of slipping and turning into the demonic Malachai that would destroy the world and end everything and everyone.
Even himself.
Every day that passed without any word from Ambrose made him wonder what his future self was up to.
If Ambrose had given in to their horrific destiny.
Nick stared at the overhead windows where lightning flashed and thunder clapped like cannon fire. Today, it wasn't looking good for either of them.
And he really didn't relish the thought that he would one day usher in Armageddon and unleash an army of ancient ticked-off demons onto the innocent world. An army that would claim the life of everyone Nekoda loved ...
As well as Nekoda herself.
It was a terrifying and sobering thought that he could become that monster. That was not what he saw when he looked in a mirror and it was not what he wanted to put on his resume for his future plans.
Suddenly, Mason let out a howl and turned from human to wolf. The students closest to Mason screamed out loud and bolted fast from the bleachers to the floor.
Stone and Alex penned the wolf between them, while the teachers tried to decide how best to handle this. Personally, Nick would have voted for running and screaming like a cheerleader in a cheap horror movie. But apparently, they were a little more sophisticated than that.
"Squires!" Ms. Pantall clapped her hands together to get their attention. "I need all of you to head on home. Don't worry about school until tomorrow. Brynna? Can you go to the cafeteria and let Mr. Head and Sister Katherine know to dismiss those students and call for buses? Tell him what's going on, and we'll hold the Weres here until their parents can come get them. We won't be putting any of them on buses, given the risk factor. They should be fine in here with us until their parents arrive." Biting her lip, she looked at Mason, who was snarling and trying to bite at Stone, and said, "I hope," under her breath.
Nick wasted no time heading for the cafeteria to pick up Kody's corporeal form. She was already back in her body, waiting for him, right inside the doors as the rest of their class rushed past him in their eagerness to vacate the building before the principal changed his mind and made them stay.
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