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.
“Run!” Savitar barked as he sent more fire blasts at the demons.
Nick didn’t hesitate.
As soon as Nick reached the convent wall, he heard shots. He started to look back, but he knew better. That fool always got eaten in movies. And Nick didn’t want to be on anyone’s menu.
Except maybe Kody’s, but not when they were on a death run from things out to kill them.
He dashed to the gate, and tried to open it. It was locked tight. And the demons were landing on the street in front of the church entrance.
Shooting her own fire blasts at them, Kody met his fearful stare.
Without thinking, he grabbed her and threw her up on the wall as high as he could.
She scrambled over the top then leaned back and held her hand out to him. “Come on, Nick.”
He took a running start and leaped for it. His hand touched hers an instant before he was thrown to the ground, on the wrong side of the fence.
“Nick!”
Dazed from the impact, Nick kicked the demon off him. But as he tried to rise, three more landed on his back and drove him to the ground again. His ears rang with the sound of their hisses and flapping wings.
Something warm and wet covered his face.
Blood. His blood.
He grimaced as pain consumed him. So this was how his life ended. Not with some great battle against horrible odds, or from some noble sacrifice for the ones he loved.
It ended with hell-monkeys slobbering all over him.
CHAPTER 8
Nick was still trying to get free when all of a sudden something knocked the demons off his back and sent them flying. And not with their wings.
“Get your filthy paws off my son, feet pue tan!”
Nick’s eyes widened at the Cajun insult his mother hurled at the demons as she literally batted them away from him. Where had she learned that? He hadn’t even known she’d ever heard such. For that matter, she once washed his mouth out because he called someone an idiot.
Impressed, and terrified of her, Nick held his hands up to shield his face as she came a little too close with her frenetic swings. “Ma! I’m under here. Don’t kill me!”
She jerked him up from the street by his arm and shoved him toward the convent, where Kody had opened the small pedestrian gate. “Get inside, Boo.”
He swung his mother up to carry her to safety as he ran inside. Once Kody closed the gate behind them, he set his mom on her feet. But he was far from safe. As soon as his mother was assured the demons couldn’t follow them in, she turned on Nick with the wrath of the Furies.
“What do you think you’re doing?” She poked her tiny finger into the center of his chest hard enough to hurt. “You’re supposed to be at school, boy. Instead, I get a call saying you’re about to be arrested and then I find you covered in demons. What is wrong with you? What were you thinking doing something so reckless?”
Now there was the angry Chihuahua he was used to facing, but it’d been awhile since he stood eye-to-eye with her. He’d forgotten how scary it was to be within her actual striking range.
His mother growled at him. “What have you to say for yourself, boy?”
“Sorry, Ma, I’m a sexy demon magnet?”
She actually pulled the bat back like she was planning to hit him with it.
“Cherise!”
She swung around, ready to battle until she saw the massive, muscled Bubba nearing them with the same fear in his eyes Nick was sure he had. “Don’t you even take that tone with me, Mr. Triple-Threat-I-don’t-have-to-listen-to-anyone-because-I’m-the-size-of-a-tank. You’re in the doghouse, buster. You might as well pack a bag ’cause you’re going to be in there so long your name’s going to be engraved on the mailbox.”
Bubba placed his hand over his heart as if her words wounded him. “Ah, what’d I do, cher?”
“You dragged my baby into danger, and you—” She turned on Savitar then. “Are you one of them?”
Savitar actually took a step back from her. “I’m going with whatever answer doesn’t get me swatted with that bat.”
Bubba disarmed her. “Cherise, calm down. What are you doing here?”
“What do you think? I’m protecting my boys. Both of you … Because Mark values his own life and in particular his male body parts, he called me after he got off the phone with you to tell me what the two of you were doing.” She raked Bubba with an angry glare that made Nick take a step closer to Kody for protection. “You didn’t honestly believe that I’ve been ignorant of what you and Mark do at night all these years? Did you?”
Bubba shifted nervously. “Um, yeah.”
“Well then you’re a fool, Michael Burdette. And I’m not.” With a disgusted sigh, she gestured up at the sky where the demons circled like vultures. “And how do we get rid of those?”
“Not easily, and we need to get into the building before they start throwing—” Savitar’s voice broke off as a car came hurtling over the wall at them. Barely missing them, it rolled across the manicured shrubs and slammed against the wall on Nick’s left. “–things at us.”
With Savitar leading the way, they ran for the old convent. Savitar used his powers to unlock the door. Nick stood back to allow Kody and his mother to enter, but then Savitar shoved him in headfirst.
“Hey!”
Savitar curled his lip. “Don’t hey me, kid. Not after the hour I’ve had because of you.”
Bubba locked the door behind them. “That’ll keep the demons out, but the humans are another story. Holy ground won’t stop them from coming in after us.”
“I don’t know … it stopped Tabby and Amanda earlier at St. Louis.”
Bubba gave him a droll stare. “What say we don’t bet our lives on whether or not humans can get in? We’ll just hedge our bets and assume they can. That okay, punkin?”
Nick snorted. “Yeah, sure.”
Kody agreed with Bubba. “And let’s also assume they’ll head straight here as soon as the demons tell Thorn where we are.” She let out a half-hysterical laugh. “Or they could just follow the circling demonic cloud over our heads. Surely they have to know that’s not normal. Even for New Orleans.”
Savitar sighed. “Too bad they know you’re a ghost. We could have used that advantage. Now it’s just a liability.”
“Yeah.” She glanced at Nick. “It wasn’t information I’d ever planned on being free with. Extenuating circumstances and all that.” She ground her teeth in anger. “I knew better than to let my guard down. I can’t believe I was so stupid!”
Cherise patted her on the back. “Don’t be too hard
on yourself, Boo. We all have moments of stupid.”
“Yeah,” Bubba agreed. “How you think Cherise ended up with me for a husband? I swear, that woman needs better lawyers. A really good one could have had her off for good behavior by now.”
Cherise walked into his arms and hugged him. “That wasn’t stupid, Michael. A bit masochistic, no doubt, but definitely not stupid.”
Ignoring them, Savitar grabbed Nick’s chin and held him by his side.
Her eyes flaring with anger, Cherise started for them, but Bubba caught her. “Don’t, baby. While that’s our son’s body, that ain’t our boy.”
“What?”
Bubba nodded. “Our Nick was switched out with another soul.”
Dumbfounded, Cherise couldn’t speak as she sputtered.
Savitar narrowed his gaze on Nick while he turned Nick’s head from side to side to study him. “And whoever did this to you, boy, knew exactly what they were doing. There’s no sign of your bloodline. I didn’t even know it was possible to hide a Malachai so completely.”
Kody folded her arms over her chest. “You should be with him in our world. He has stood next to Acheron Parthenopaeus many times, and not even Ash can tell.”
Savitar finally released him and stepped back. “You’re sure he’s a Malachai?”
Kody lowered the neck of her sweater to show a vicious scar over her heart. “I was looking him in the eyes when he killed me. It’s him.” She paused before she continued. “Well, not him, but it will be one day.” Biting her lip, she faced Cherise, who was still struggling with the unbelievable reality. “Have no fear for your Nick, Mrs. Burdette. Your son is safe in my world. He couldn’t be more protected. I promise you I left him with two powerful men who would die before they allow him to be harmed.”
Finally, Cherise found her voice again. “How do we swap them back?”
Kody sighed. “I wish I knew.”
Savitar moved to a window to check on the location and activities of their demons. “We have to find the one responsible. It’s our only hope to undo this and get him back to your world before it’s too late.”
Illusion: Chronicles of Nick Page 9