Xevikan became aware of his surroundings with a start. Sensing something was off about the room, he blinked and scowled until he met Kody’s equally confused gaze. His whole body was stiff as if he’d been in a fight.
Yet he hadn’t.
Had he?
Rolling his shoulders, he tried to make sense of what he felt and saw.
“Where’s Nick?” Kody asked him.
Oh yeah, that’s what’s missing. Nick had been right beside him a moment ago.
“I don’t know.”
Even Dagon looked baffled by it all.
“What happened?” Rubbing at his temple, Xev felt as if he’d sustained a stunning battle-blow to the head. Nothing had hit him this hard, with this amount of damage, since Caleb. That demon alone could rattle him like this.
Dagon went perfectly still, all of a sudden. “Do you smell that?”
“Smell what?” Kody asked.
But Xev knew that unique sickly-sweet stench the moment Dagon mentioned it. “Chronus.”
Dagon nodded slowly. “His keepers were here.”
Skimming the room as he turned a slow circle, Xev narrowed his gaze on the shadows. “Or still are.”
Kody frowned. “I don’t understand.”
“Neither do I,” Dagon breathed.
He met Xev’s gaze with eyes that betrayed his own concern that this was quickly escalating into something none of them wanted to live through again. “You think they took Nick for the Source?”
His stomach churned at the very thought of it. And yet … “Why else would the Malachai have vanished? They had to have taken him.”
But why?
That was the terrifying question.
If Chronus took possession of Nick, it couldn’t be good for anyone. Especially not for anyone in this room. The primal god of order didn’t involve himself lightly.
And whenever he did …
Tragic things happened for them all.
Xev turned toward Simi. “Charonte? Can you trace the Malachai?”
“The Simi wishes you’d stop calling her that, cursed god. It really, really annoying. She gots a name. Two of them, actually. And they both are quite lovely. So please, pick one and use it when you address me. Otherwise, I might have to do something not so nice to you to get the Simi’s point across.”
Sighing irritably at him, she closed her eyes and tried to locate Nick.
After a few seconds, she shook her head. “Nope. The Simi gots no ideas where he went on off to. Maybe he got hungry? Sometimes them boys do that without warning. He the only one the Simi knows who eats as much as she does. He a growing Malachai, after all.”
Xev turned around slowly as he studied the symbols on the walls. Symbols that would be useless against Chronus and Tiamat. As well as their pets. He hoped he was wrong. “I have a really bad feeling about this.”
Dagon nodded. “As do I. If both Chronus and Tiamat are here, there can only be one reason for it.”
“What?” Kody asked.
“Judgment,” Xev and Dagon said in unison.
It was the only thing that made sense, and it explained absolutely everything that had happened so far.
The weather. The demons.
Everything.
They should have realized it sooner. But it was so rare a thing that it just hadn’t occurred to him that it could be happening, especially since neither he nor Livia had voted or discussed such.
In theory, the šarras should have all met together to decide upon it. All of them. Yet none had broached the subject with him.
Not even Livia, whom he saw every day.
Kody sucked her breath in sharply. “The others?”
Xev nodded. “They must have called for Nick to be removed as Malachai.”
Her jaw went slack as she finally understood the severity of what they might be dealing with. “Has that ever been done before?”
“Only once. Many eons ago. After that … there’s never been another opportunity. Because of their inherited memories, and tendency and need for vengeance, the Malachais put us down too fast for fear of it happening again. They give us no chance to get together for the vote. And take great pleasure in punishing us for what was done back then.”
Dagon turned to Kody. “You better get to Caleb, and make sure Livia hasn’t done something to him.”
“What do you mean?”
It was Xevikan who answered her question. “If this is the Malachai test, she might be working with the others, and there’s no telling what she might have done to him to initiate it. It would take four šarras to agree to have a Malachai undergo the hazard. I know I didn’t call for it or vote on it. That leaves her, or Bane, as a deciding vote with the others. And I have a feeling Bane didn’t bother. Unless he’s radically different from the man I remember, he wouldn’t involve himself with such politics or treachery.”
Kody shook her head. “It doesn’t make sense, though. Why would Livia do that after all Caleb and Nick have done to welcome her in?”
Xev laughed bitterly. “It’s her nature, Nekoda. If the šarras reached out to her, and asked her to join them, she would have, without hesitation. All she wants is to feel like she’s a part of their family. One of them.”
As Kody started to leave, they heard a knock on the door.
“Menyara?” Dagon asked, thinking it might be her returning with some of their reinforcements.
No one answered from the hallway.
Simi went to the door and peeped through the hole. “Nope. It that other dog-boy. Zavid … Hi, Zavid!” she said in a louder tone as she opened the door for him to enter the condo.
But as he came into the room with an odd swagger and headed straight for the couch where Cherise was still sleeping, they realized this wasn’t Zavid.
It was Noir in his body.
Dagon cut his path off to Cherise. “What are you doing here, Father?”
“You know what I want, boy. Now join me or stand aside.”
Dagon’s gaze went to Xev and Kody. “You asked me earlier to pick a side to die for. I just did.”
Stepping back, he let fly a blast from his hands and declared his eternal enmity.