Nick choked and wheezed as someone gave him mouth-to-mouth. “That better be you, Kody. I swear to God if it’s Bubba, I’m about to need a truckload of Listerine.”
Bubba snorted as he rolled Nick over toward her. “For the record, it was. Again, you ain’t that cute in high heels, boy. Though I guess I’d have done it for you if I had to. But only ’cause your mama is, and she’d have stabbed me someplace real uncomfortable with hers if I let something happen to your rotten little hide.”
Laughing, Kody brushed the hair back from Nick’s face. “You okay?”
“Yeah. What happened?”
Her brow lined with worry, she kept her hand on his cheek. “You stopped breathing and turned a shade of blue I only want to see in your eyes. Not on your skin or lips.”
Grateful he’d remembered to shave extra close that morning, Nick rolled to his back and scowled up at his friends, especially as he realized there was a crowd gathered around them. Great. An audience for this embarrassing display. Just what he craved …
’Cause puberty just wasn’t humiliating enough on its own.
Kill me now.
Bubba held him down as he started to rise. “I’ve already called an ambulance. You ain’t going nowhere till you get checked out. Not with that heart condition you have. My mama and yours would slaughter me.”
“He’s right,” Mr. Head said as he pushed through the nosy onlookers. “Don’t move, Nick. Just lie still till they get here. Last thing we need’s a lawsuit.”
Double awesome. More hospital bills. At this rate, he was going to be indentured to the insurance company for the rest of his natural life.
Grinding his teeth, he met Kody’s worried gaze. He didn’t really have a heart condition, and they both knew it. His early childhood health problems had stemmed from his human body rejecting the demonic parts of his DNA. He was a freak of nature who should have never survived his father’s biological gifts.
“Guys, I really do feel fine.” He met Bubba’s gaze. “C’mon, Triple Threat. Let my Nicky go.”
“I’m not chancing it. Nor am I facing your mama without a thorough screening from a licensed doc. I happen to value and appreciate all my body parts being in their current locations.”
Nick groaned in agony as he regretted ever allowing Bubba to take his mom out on a date. They’d only gone out once, but since then, Bubba had assumed the role of Nick guardianship with a terrifying iron grip. “Then please don’t call her. Go get her and take her to the hospital to meet me. She’ll be too tore up to drive and I don’t want her out in this mess alone. She drives bad enough as it is.”
“Mark’s with her. I’ll have him drive her over while I follow the ambulance.”
Nick gaped at the mere suggestion. “Are you nuts? Have you seen the way that man drives? He’s worse than she is. I don’t know what loon approved his license, but dang! I swear he found it in the bottom of a cereal box. And he took lessons from Mario and Luigi.”
Snorting, Bubba pulled out his cell phone to call Mark and tell him what had happened.
Before Nick could continue his protests, the EMTs arrived. Kody stepped back so that they could check his vitals. With the exception of a fever, they confirmed that there was nothing wrong with him. But because of his heart condition, they insisted that he go in for more testing.
It was so frustrating.
And scary since there was always a chance that they might actually uncover something “abnormal” about him. Something that could land him locked in a lab somewhere for testing since he was about as abnormal as any X-Men could be.
Of course, it didn’t help any that he had a new hell-monkey best friend in that one of the zeitjägers decided to hitch a ride with them as they took Nick to the ambulance and closed the doors.
Why did that have to be his new psycho stalker? Couldn’t there by a supermodel somewhere, obsessed with gawky teenage boys with bad wardrobes and velcro-mother issues?
What did it want with him, anyway? And why couldn’t anyone else see it?
He stared at the hell-monkey.
The hell-monkey zeitjäger twisted the sickle in his hand and stared back.
Very disturbing.
While the EMT kept an eye on his vitals, Nick continued to watch his silent harbinger. Kody slid carefully past it and sat in the corner, out of the way.
Nick glanced pointedly at the zeitjäger, then her. Why is he still with us?
Kody shrugged. I can’t exactly ask while we have company. If I do that, they might take us both to the psych ward.
At this point, he was almost willing to chance it. Anything to get to the bottom of what was going on.
“Some weather, huh?” the EMT asked them as they were shut in and the driver took off.
“Yeah.” Nick watched as the woman rechecked his blood pressure. “Still a normal teen, right? I haven’t mutated into an Avenger or anything?”
She laughed. “Not yet, Tony Stark. Are you trying?”
“Some days. I’d like to try being a billionaire playboy for a change.”
She shook her head. “Well, you might get your chance. Given the size of the mosquitos we had to battle to get inside your school, it wouldn’t surprise me if they weren’t refugees from a nearby radiated science facility of some kind.”
“Probably got into some of my mama’s uncle’s bayou moonshine. She always said that stuff could bring the dead back to life. And strip the finish off anything, including cars and kidneys. Wouldn’t surprise me if it couldn’t mutate a few skeeters, too.”
The EMT laughed so hard, she choked. “Is he always like this?” she asked Kody.
“Yes, he is.”
“Girl, you’ve got your hands full, don’t you?”
“You have no idea.”
And still the zeitjäger stared at them as if waiting for something more unholy to happen.
It was so creepy and disturbing. But not nearly as much as the storm that continued to slam against the ambulance until it was forced to slow down to a crawl to get through the streets that were beginning to flood. Even the EMT started sweating.
Their nervousness wasn’t helped as the mosquitos began to gather on the outside of the truck to the point that the evil beasts completely covered the windows.
The EMT gulped audibly. “It’s like one of them horror movies, ain’t it?”
“Yeah,” Nick breathed. “And I didn’t even play with a Ouija board … this time.”
Kody snorted. “Maybe this is one of those hundred-year storms or something that drove the bugs out of their nests. You know, the kind of thing that we’ll tell our grandkids about?”
The EMT’s face paled as more mosquitos hit the truck. “Maybe, but I’ve never heard of anything like this.” No sooner had she finished those words than something struck the ambulance and sent it careening.
Nick grabbed Kody and shielded her and the EMT as the ambulance turned onto its side and slid down the street. Loose objects flew around them, striking his body and bouncing off them. While the EMT screamed and Kody wrapped herself around him, he used his powers and kept the women safely cocooned and padded from harm until the truck stopped and everything settled down.
For a full minute, he didn’t move. Not until the door was wrested off by an unnatural force that skittered down his spine. The EMT shouted out prayers as Kody pushed herself back to deal with their latest threat.
The winds howled. A black smoke rushed forward into the ambulance like giant talons, freezing everything it touched. The EMT shrieked and crawled away from it. She tried to hide as best she could.
Frost covered the ambulance and turned all surfaces white and brittle. Yet they were hot to the touch. Rising up like some ghastly black misty angel, the smoke spread out to form a body and wings. It wore a cowl that covered its head and hid its features.
“Fringe Guard?” Nick asked Kody, assuming it was one of the fierce creatures that protected the boundary between the human world and the spiritual one.
She shook her head. “He’s demonic. And he’s definitely after you. Probably for the bounty. But not a Guard.”
The zeitjäger made a hissing noise as it shirked away from Nick’s pursuer.
Ah yeah, that ain’t good …
Nick used his powers to daze the EMT so that she wouldn’t understand what was happening or see anything clearly. The last thing any of them needed was for a professional baretos to see what was going on and lose her mind over it. Most people couldn’t handle what they dealt with on a day-to-day basis.
He pulled back slowly from Kody. “Why’s the zeitjäger afraid of my new friend?”
“I don’t think he is.”
She might be right. The zeitjäger seemed to be waiting for Nick to die.
Sorry to disappoint. He wasn’t about to go down today, especially not for this ugly beastie. And not for something as ridiculous as money.
Rising to his feet, he blasted the demon back and slammed his fist into its jaw. Yeah okay, that seriously hurt. He’d cry about it later.…
If he survived.
With a fierce shriek, the thing manifested a sword. It turned and narrowly missed taking Nick’s head.
Nick ducked, but Kody caught the blade with her own sword before it could kill him, and kicked the demon back, out of the ambulance and into the streaming rain. The two of them went at it. He started to help and stopped himself, knowing she could handle it and wouldn’t appreciate his interference any more than he would. Besides, she was much better with a sword than he was, since she had centuries more experience using one, and they’d made a pact to never tread on each other’s expertise in a fight. He respected her abilities and she respected his.
Instead, he went to check on the EMTs to make sure they were okay and stable, and that more help was on the way for them.
As he moved past the zeitjäger, it cocked its head to stare at him.
“What?” Nick asked it in a challenging tone.
It vanished instantly.
So did the mosquitos, and the rain slacked off, too. Yeah, okay, that was just weirder than holding Mardi Gras in June. Finding snow in August. Or Bubba in a tie and business suit. Made no sense whatsoever.
Trying not to think about it, he moved to help the EMT who’d been tending him. She was shaken up and still dazed, but appeared to be physically okay. He left the rear of the ambulance to check the driver, who was unconscious. Worse, the driver was wedged in the wreckage and trapped behind the wheel. Since Nick couldn’t get him out, Nick returned to the rear to look for some way to cut the driver’s seatbelt, and pry the wheel away from his body.
While Nick searched, Kody quickly dispatched the demon. As soon as she finished, she returned to his side, but they had no way of freeing the trapped driver, so they took turns maintaining pressure on a tourniquet against the driver’s wound where he’d been injured in the crash. The other EMT kept checking on the ETA for another ambulance.
Kody frowned as she scanned the street while they listened to all the calls on the ambulance’s radio. “I thought Bubba was following us?”
“We must have lost him in the rain.”
Kody used her powers to disguise her sword as an umbrella that she held over him and the two EMTs. “What happened to the zeitjäger?”
“Don’t know. He vanished.”
Crossing her arms over her chest, she shivered. “This is bad, Nick. Real bad.”
“I know, cher. I can feel it.”
She jerked her chin toward the smoldering remains of the demon she’d dispatched. “They’re coming for you, Nick. Harder and stronger than ever before.” She shivered. “Not just Noir. This is … I don’t know. It’s not normal. It’s unlike anything I’ve ever felt before.”
Oh goody. Just what he wanted to hear. That made his day all the brighter.
Nick fell silent as he heard the next call on the radio and the address for it. It was one he knew all too well.
His heart stopped beating in stark cold terror as he met Kody’s shocked expression. “That’s my mom!”
* * *
Laguerre smiled at Grim as she entered his office and found him at his desk. “Our friend just returned home with a gift for us. The king is in check.”
A slow smile spread across his face. “So soon?”
“Easy enough when you have the pieces all in place. I told you, the Malachai trusts our newest ally. He didn’t even see it coming. He has no idea that he’s being tested and that if he fails, he loses everything.”
So it seemed. “Where’s his mother?”
An evil laugh escaped her beautiful lips. “Someplace safe.”
Grim winced at the thought of the last place anyone would look for Cherise Gautier. “Gah, I hate that hole.”
“Most beings do. It’s why it was chosen for her prison. He’ll never find her there.”
Grim saluted her for her cold, calculated choice. “What if our king chooses to sacrifice his queen to the cause?”
“He won’t. She’s his raison d’être. Nick would give us his Arelim love before he’d allow his mother to die. Whoever controls Cherise, controls Nick. You know that.”
“But have you ever wondered why?”
Laguerre scowled. “What do you mean?”
“Think about it. First Adarian gives his life for her, and now Nick. What is so special about this one particular human that two Malachais are willing to kill themselves to keep her safe?”
She shrugged. “Love. It’s a useless, pesky emotion to feel. Adarian fell in love with her, and for that pathetic reason, valued her life over his own. Nick, because she’s his mother and he adores her. Even more ridiculous, if you ask me.”
And still that seemed too simple for Grim to accept it. Why would Adarian care? What would make a creature so foully cruel and uncaring, so selfish and cold, take notice of a tiny, frail woman? While Cherise was attractive, there were millions of other women who were more so. Millions of women who would have appealed to a Malachai.
What had been so special about her that Adarian, after so many centuries of being so careful, would claim her as the mother of his heir?
And then to protect her to such an extent, that he’d ultimately died for her? It just didn’t make sense. It never had.
No, there was more to this. There had to be.
More to Cherise Gautier than a simple frail human mother.
Anytime Grim had ever threatened to harm or even approach Cherise, Adarian had gone nuclear. In this game of life and death, of winner-take-the-world, she had been completely off-limits to all of them. The one card no one could play.
The one ace that would make Nick fold.
Now …
Grim finally had her in his hands and it was time he learned why this woman, alone, held the ultimate sway over the two most powerful Malachais who’d ever been born.
She’d already caused the death of one.
And she was about to be the death of the other.