Nick launched his wings, but kept his human body. Ah yeah, now this was cool. "So ... shall we fly to the Nemed?"
With a nod of approval, Aeron turned into the ball of ghost light, and led him through the forest with Lerabeth and Livia trailing behind them.
Now that Nick was able to access his Malachai powers without them taking him over, they were able to reach the tree in a matter of minutes.
Nick also realized that his mission had been a manufactured trick by Chronus and Tiamat. The tree was so tall that without his Malachai wings, he wouldn't have been able to reach the berries at all. They hung too high. But there was also another problem.
He frowned up at the fruit that was nestled along the leaf-filled branches. "Do I pick the black, green, or red berries?"
"Blackberries," Livia answered.
"Nae!" Aeron shouted as Nick reached for them. "Nemed blackberries are for death. The green are unripened fruit. The red are what you be needing to revive your loved ones, boyo."
Livia scoffed at him. "He's lying to you, Nick. For once, listen to me!"
Nick growled low in his throat, tired of Livia's eternal bickering and whining. "Lerabeth? Which is it?"
"I was to lead. You're here. You pick the berries you were told."
There was only one problem with that. "No one said anything about color-coded berries, crow woman. They just said to pick six."
"Then pick six and be done with it."
Nick wanted to wring the neck of that unhelpful red crow. He glanced to Livia, who was glaring at him as if she could kill him herself.
She might be one of his generals, but every part of him said that he should listen to Aeron. "Fine. Then I'm going with the one who calls this place home. If anyone should know which to pick, Aeron should be he."
He reached for the red ones.
The moment Nick had all six in his hand, Lerabeth opened the portal back to their world.
Nick hesitated. "Can Aeron return with us?"
"I brought two in and was only told to take two out. That is all I can do."
Nick scowled as he faced the one person he owed everything to. Without the puca they'd have never made it. It didn't seem right to leave him here and go home after everything Aeron had done for him.
"Aeron--"
"It's fine, boyo." He gave Nick a cheerful smile that didn't quite reach his pale eyes. "Give Xev me best."
Nick nodded glumly, feeling like crap over this. It wasn't fair or right.
But then, life seldom was.
As Nick started to turn to leave through the portal, Livia ran up to him and grabbed his Malachai dagger from his back pocket. Before he could ask her what she was doing with it, she cut his throat and vanished through the portal, then sealed it closed.
Stunned by the pain, Nick fell to his knees as he tried to stop the bleeding with his own hands. But it was useless. He was going to die.
He couldn't believe what had just happened.
Livia had murdered him.
After everything he'd done for her.
I saved her life. Kept her from having to go back to her prison.
And this was how she repaid him. Kyrian was right. No good deed goes unpunished.
Kneeling by his side, Aeron cawed and summoned a small murder of crows to them. Since he couldn't hold or grasp anything, he had the crows bring straw and brush to make a pillow for Nick's head. "Breathe, Malachai, stay calm."
Easier said than done. His senses reeled as his fury mounted over her actions. Livia had betrayed him in the worst sort of way.
The bitch had cut his throat! Literally. And left him to die alone in this realm without friend or family!
But there was nothing to be done about it. In a few minutes, he'd bleed out and be gone from this life.
Forever.
And in that one heartbeat when his anger and hatred were at their highest point, when all he wanted was vengeance and blood, he let it go and released all that negativity from his body and heart.
There was no need in holding on to it now at the very end of his life. Not when he had so many regrets that saddened him and made him wish he'd spent his finite time more productively.
And with the people who'd mattered most to him.
The biggest regret inside his heart was his inability to save his mother and Caleb.
Not being with Kody, during these final precious minutes.
Yet there was one last regret he could take care of before he died. While it wouldn't render aid to those closest to him, it would to one who had helped them all in the past.
At least he hoped it would. And if he could help one last person before he died, then he could go in peace.
His eyesight blurring and fading, he pulled out his grimoire. It and the dagger Livia had stolen were two of the most powerful tools a Malachai had, and the two he'd first mastered. Sort of. No one ever really mastered the grimoire since it was possessed by an ancient yokai--a mischievous eastern oracle spirit that had been trapped by his father and tricked into the book. The only way to communicate with her was to offer Nashira a blood sacrifice.
Blood has power and yours has more than most. Make sure you guard it and bleed as little as possible. Caleb's words of warning went through his head.
A little late since he was now bleeding all over the place. It saturated his ugly Hawaiian shirt and the ground around him. And it covered the necravitacon where his father had trapped her centuries ago.
"Nashira," Nick gasped weakly, hoping this worked and that he could free her before he died, "hear me and step forward. Not in words, this time, but in your woman's form. The time has come for you to be restored. A favor to a favor. A Malachai once took you from this world, now the time ... has come ... for a Malachai to return you." He held the book to his chest and prayed for it to work.
The air whipped around him, like a violent hurricane. Strong and furious. It drove the crows back as a cloud of dark purple smoke rolled out of the grimoire. It rose up into a column by Nick and Aeron's side.
A pair of perfect lavender eyes formed to stare incredulously at him. The smoke turned into tendrils of long white hair that was fastened with purple flowers bound in flowering ribbons. Then, ever so slowly, the smoke solidified into the rest of her body.
The white crow tengu that his father had captured centuries ago and bound to his service against her will was a lot tinier than Nick had imagined her. More fragile in appearance ... especially given her nasty and biting sarcasm. But in reality, she was similar to a tiny, adorable pixie. Like Simi in her real form, she had pointed ears and a pointy chin.
She was so beautiful. In a unique, impish way. How he wished he'd been able to free her in the human realm and not here. But maybe she'd be able to cross over again. Someday.
And at least she again was in her own body.
Gaping in disbelief, she stared down at her hands and turned them back and forth before she met Nick's gaze. "I'm restored?"
Nick nodded and offered her a smile even as the darkness stole his sight. "With my dying breath, I free you from your slavery. I'm just sorry it took me so long to figure out how to do it."
CHAPTER 15
Nick came awake slowly as he remembered Livia's vicious attack on him in Agonia. And he knew he was dead.
Because I'm an idiot.
He'd been looking for treachery to come at him from everyone but the one who'd actually done it. Xev. Dagon. Acheron. Ambrose. Caleb. Aeron. Lerabeth.
Even Kody and Menyara.
Yet it had been the one he hadn't been paying attention to who'd done it.
Yeah, ain't this a bitch? Never failed. Never came from the bus you saw, that was blowing the horn and flashing its lights. It was always that sneaky SOB in a small Toyota coming up behind you that you missed.
Nick swallowed, wishing things were different. But he knew better. There was no way to have suffered such a vicious neck wound and not feel pain from it.
Not without death.
And he'
Nothing hurt.
He bit his lip, scared to open his eyes and find out where he'd ended up for eternity. He was hoping he'd gone north to a pearly gate where Peter would be waiting with a lengthy list of all the things he'd screwed up in his life, but as the Malachai, he wasn't betting on it.
Please don't let it be really hot here. New Orleans in August was about as hot as he wanted to deal with. And he definitely didn't want to smell rotten eggs for eternity. He'd had enough of Kyrian's dirty laundry for that.
And Bourbon Street alleyways after Mardi Gras.
"Nick?" A soft, gentle hand stroked his cheek. One that didn't belong to Kody or his mother.
Confused, he opened his eyes to find Nashira there. "Am I dead?"
A slow smile spread across her beautiful, fragile features. "No. We saved you."
"We?"
She inclined her head to the other side of the room.
Nick shifted to see ... holy crap. It was Aeron. Only he wasn't a puck anymore. He was now fully restored, too.
How had that happened?
No longer pale-skinned, Aeron had a glowing, tawny complexion. And he was a tall beast, too. Close to Acheron's massive butt-kicking height. Or maybe he just seemed that tall given his tough aura and that deadly, piercing expression on his face.
"What happened to you?"
A slow blush crept over Aeron's skin that mottled his cheeks and tempered his badass aura. He shifted slightly in his chair. "Remember what I told you about holding your temper, Malachai?"
"Yeah?"
"Hold your temper."
A bad feeling went through Nick. "Why are you telling me that?"
Rising to his feet, Aeron put a little more distance between them. Enough that he could bolt if he had to.
Ah, that can't be good ...
Nick's scowl deepened that someone as powerful and deadly as Aeron would ever be so skittish around him. Honestly? He doubted he could touch him on skill.
And given his current condition, he knew he couldn't catch him. So then, what was the deal?
"In order to save your life, I had to take a small involuntary blood donation from you."
Nick froze as those words rattled around his three brain cells. "You drank my blood?"
"Aye."
He screwed his face up at the mere thought of it. "Dude, that's so gross. I hope you brushed your teeth afterward. Saw a dentist. Drank a gallon of Listerine."
Aeron laughed.
"I told you he wouldn't be angry for it." Nashira took Nick's hand and held it in both of hers before she bowed low to him. "I can't believe that you were dying and your last act was to think to free me."
"Well, I just figured out how to do it. But I wasn't completely sure it would work. I wanted to ask Caleb about it, then he got sick before I could. And all this other crap happened. Since I was dying, I figured it was worth a shot before I went. No need in you being trapped in there for the rest of eternity if you could go free."
Tears filled her lavender eyes as she squeezed his hand. "And that is why we worked together to save your life. Why we have watched over you and worried that you wouldn't pull through."
Touched by her concern, Nick wasn't sure what to say to that.
Aeron came forward finally and handed Nick a small, folded handkerchief.
Nick opened it to find the berries he'd picked for his mother and Caleb. "Ah man, this is great, but how do we open the portal now that Lerabeth is gone?"
Aeron shrugged nonchalantly. "It's not a problem. You're the Malachai. At 11:34, the veils weaken. It's easy for you to open a portal and go through."
"11:34? Why then?"
"Invert it and turn it over."
Nick blinked at Aeron. "I'm an idiot with a head injury. Want to help a brother out and make it easy on me?"
Nashira snorted. "Take it from me, our Malachai isn't big on riddles or puzzles. He doesn't even like to play Zelda."
"Yeah. Attention span of a gnat. ADD."
Aeron sighed heavily. "It's a numeric cipher for 'hell.' Before it came to mean 'infernal damnation,' it was simply a word that meant 'hidden behind a veil' or 'to keep hidden.' Even the term 'hell-mouth' is an ancient one that was used by my people long before missionaries came to our shores."
Nashira nodded. "Whenever it turns 11:34 over a hell-mouth or near a hell-gate, the veil thins enough for something to punch its way through from one realm to another. There's always a chance something can come through. It's why you saw so many zeitjagers earlier. The atmospheric unrest put all the guardians on notice that the portals were about to be accessed."
Aeron crossed his arms over his chest. "Even I knew from here that Noir was trying to cross from Azmodea into the human realm."
"Did he make it?"
Nashira hesitated before she answered his question. "I'm sorry, Nick. They weren't able to stop him."
Fear and dread tangled inside him. If Noir had made it through, then he'd gone after those nearest and dearest to Nick. And most likely, Livia was hoovering up to Noir, right now.
Playtime was over.
Ignoring the pain, Nick rose slowly to his feet. "What do I need to do to get us through?"
Aeron snorted disdainfully. "You're the Malachai. Transform to your body. Conjure a portal. Punch through it."
Gah, he made it sound so easy.
Nashira put her hand on Nick's shoulder. "But don't be hatin' when you do it."
Nick laughed at her reminder. "Where are all the riddles and rhymes you were so quick to torment me with in the past?"
She smiled at him. "I'm no longer locked in the necravitacon. My desire to make you crazy with them is gone now." She rose up to kiss his cheek. "My only desire is to help you and to thank you for my freedom."
"You're welcome." Nick rolled his shoulders and shook his hands to loosen them. "All right. Let's try this."
Aeron moved to stand by his side so that he could help guide him through it.
With a deep breath for courage, Nick tapped his powers and let the strength of the Malachai run through him.
For a moment, as he remembered what Livia had done, he felt himself slipping toward the beastly side of it and losing control.
But he pulled himself back by sheer force of will. Livia wasn't worth the cost of losing his future. Of losing Nekoda and his mother. They were the prize.
Hoping Aeron and Nashira weren't setting him up like Livia had, Nick did what they said and punched a hole from Agonia back into the mortal realm he called home.
For a full terrifying minute--the longest one of his life--he didn't think he could do it. But after a few more nerve-wrecking seconds, he finally made the hole through.
He allowed Nashira and Aeron to cross over first, and then he followed through and closed the portal.
"Where are we?" Aeron asked in a low whisper as he glanced about at the bed and dresser.
"My room." Nick kept his tone barely audible. Just in case.
Using his telepathy, he reached out to Kody to see where everyone was.
She didn't respond.
His panic set in. They should all be here, in his house, where it was safe and protected.
Why weren't they here?
Nashira touched his arm to anchor him. "Breathe, Malachai. Don't panic. Don't get angry. Not until you have more information."
Grateful for her presence, he closed his eyes and used his powers to search the condo.
It was empty.
Rage tore him apart as he saw the blood and fighting in afterimages that had been recorded by Menyara's spells. Noir had been here and he'd attacked them all.
"Nick ... Calm yourself."
Honestly? He didn't want to be calm. He wanted Noir's throat. The Malachai in him was a fierce, demanding beast.
And right now, it was hungry. Bloodthirsty. It craved the throats and hearts of his enemies.
Of anyone who'd ever done him harm.
His breathing ragged as he struggled for control, he opened his eyes to stare at Aeron. "Is this how the world looks to you, too?"
"Do you know what my name means?"
Nick shook his head.
"Carnage and slaughter. Back in the time when the Dagda and the Morrigan ruled, there were altars set for me throughout the kingdoms where we were worshiped. The day before a battle was to be fought, three strong warriors--two men and one female, in the prime of their youth--would be sacrificed to me to ensure me favor for their cause and their victory."
"And I should take what from all that?"
"That it was never the blood of me own that I hungered for. It's the throats of me enemies I crave. Their blood that nourishes me hunger and makes me want to feel it washing over me skin and bones, until I'm drunk from it. So, aye. I understand what you see and feel. That need you have to rip them apart and relish every cry they scream for mercy and death."
Nick took a step to the left.
Aeron wrapped his fist in Nick's shirt and pulled him closer as those pale eyes showed every ounce of furious horror that lived inside the ancient being. "But as a fellow brother in the deathly arts, I'm telling you now, boyo, don't give in to that hatred. Remember what I told you. Save yourself while you're able. Don't lose your soul for vengeance. Think of your Nekoda and let her pull you back from your violent ways, and if there's killing to be done, let me have it. I'm already damned and lost. There's still hope for you, lad."
Aeron released him and stepped back. He clapped a hand against Nick's cheek. "Better?"
Not quite sure, but definitely intimidated by the war-god, Nick nodded and took a second to get ahold of his emotions.
Finally, he had enough control to use Menyara's spells to see what had happened and to let it play out. Yes, his anger wanted control, but he kept a tight leash on it and refused to give in to it.
He would not be his father.
I am the Ambrose Malachai. And he would walk his own path. Right or wrong.
With a deep, fortifying breath, he looked at Aeron, then Nashira. "They're at Caleb's."
And they were under one bloody, bad attack.
CHAPTER 16
"We can't hold them! They're busting through!" Kody shouted a warning to Simi, who was holed up in Caleb's bedroom with his body and Cherise's.
Demons, crows, insects--you name it, Noir was throwing it at them.
Kody hadn't seen anything like this since she'd been in battle against Ambrose, centuries from now. They were losing, and she was terrified.
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