“So you’re the son of Braith.”
Standing in the middle of an opulent marble hallway, Nick blinked at the rich, melodic voice so similar to Kody’s, and yet the accent was very different. Even so, this woman shared the same bright green eyes that seared him with intelligent curiosity, and a smile that made every part of his body sizzle.
She was just as breathtakingly bold as she walked straight up to him and arched her brow in challenge. “Have you nothing to say to me?”
Not really. He was too amused by the woman who barely came up to his chin. Her white wings twitched.
Her spunk and sass warmed him on every level. “And you would be?”
“Rubati. I’ve come to join the goddess’s guard, but they told me that there were no openings. Apparently, there are so many Malachai here in the city that we’re being sent back home without even being tested for skill. Pity.” Sighing, she turned to leave.
Before he could stop himself, he reached for her hand.
“And why’s that?”
There was no missing the confident gleam in her eyes. “I’m one of the best fighters ever born.”
He laughed.
Faster than he could react, she flipped him onto his back and had a knife at his throat.
Impressed, he stared up at her, knowing that, had she wanted to, she could have killed him. “You made your point.”
“I know.” She stepped away and sheathed her knife. Then she held her hand out for him so that she could help him to his feet.
Thinking to fool her, he tried to flip her in turn.
Even then she got the better of him and once again, he ended on the flat of his backside, staring up at the amused twinkle in her eyes.
Until he swept his feet out from under her.
With a shriek, she crashed down on top of him. Laughing once more, he rolled and pinned her beneath him. “Draw, is it?”
With an indignant hiss, she reluctantly ceded his victory. “That was an unfair attack!”
“Really? You dare accuse me, given what you just did?”
“A little. Aye.”
More amused than he should be, he rolled off her and helped her up. “I’m still impressed. And perhaps we can find a place for you in the guard, after all. Regardless of what they told you. Would you like for me to speak to the commander on your behalf?”
Her hopeful expression did the strangest things to his gut. Honestly, he’d never seen anyone more beautiful, nor had she been boasting about her skills. She was an accomplished fighter. “Could you?”
“Sure. On one condition.”
“What?”
“Have dinner with me?”
Nick let out a deep breath as he realized he was seeing how Monakribos and Rubati first met, and how they started their doomed relationship.
Monakribos was the original Malachai who’d founded his lineage before recorded history had begun. It had been Rubati’s vicious murder at the hands of her drugged and deranged husband as decreed by treacherous gods that had led to Nick’s curse and prophecy.
His forefather had sworn his vengeance against them all for what they’d taken from him. He’d vowed to see the entire world burn over it.
The heart and soul of her husband, Rubati had been the anchor who had kept the first Malachai sane and manageable. She alone had made him “human”. Once she was gone, he’d lost all shred of humanity and caring.
It was her DNA that she shared with Kody’s mother that allowed Kody to be Nick’s anchor in the future. And it was why he was their one hope of thwarting the Malachai curse. Because Kody’s mother had been created from Rubati’s blood, she, alone, calmed him. All because her mother had been born out of the injustice of Rubati’s murder.
The gods had wrongfully taken Rubati’s life and so to balance it out, Bethany had been resurrected without a heart to provide justice to the universe.
That was the legacy of Kody’s bloodline. Her family were all gods of justice and balance. Chthonians or demigods.
Protectors of man.
Meanwhile Nick’s were the destroyers. They were hatred and all the darkness of the universe.
By reuniting their two bloodlines, Nick and Kody stood a chance at laying the hatred aside and allowing Nick to live out his lifetime not as a destroyer, but as a protector too.
Haven’t you figured it out yet?
Nick gasped as he heard his father’s voice in the aether around him.
“Adarian?”
Something slammed into his chest, knocking him down. It felt as if he’d been hit by a truck. With a gasp, he forced himself to his feet, and braced himself to take another hit as he realized this wasn’t who and what he thought.
This was the other Malachai.
“Where are you?” he roared. “Face me, you coward!”
Light blinded him.
And out of the searing brightness came the red and black winged beast who haunted his nightmares. The one with red, glowing eyes that hated him most.
Not his father.
Ambrose Malachai. The monster he feared becoming.
Beautiful and ugly in that he would one day incinerate the world. Or at least allow it to fall.
Nick winced as he faced himself in the vast nothingness that hovered between dimensions. “Why are you here?”
Ambrose tsked at him. “C’mon, kid. You’re not this stupid. I mean, you are. But think about it for a minute.” He lifted his clawed hands up. The black talons shot fire toward the sky as his black wings spread out. Those eyes telegraphed their hatred and malice.
“What are the inherent powers of our kind?”
Nick scowled at Ambrose’s question. “Necromancy.” Which had been one of his hardest things to master and he was still working on it. The ability to talk to the dead wasn’t something he could do with any kind of ease.
Not to mention, it was rather creepy. And the dead tended to be crabby whenever he tried it. They had nasty attitudes about being disturbed. Kind of like his whenever his mom asked him to take out the trash.
Ambrose nodded in approval. “What else?”
The first one he’d mastered and the only one he’d been born with that Menyara hadn’t been able to bind or restrict. “Perspicacity.” That ability to see the heart and truth of those around him. Whether it was the fact that Acheron was really a god or to tell whenever someone was lying to him, a Malachai could always see the truth of all things. Who and what everything really was.
Nothing and no one ever got the better of a Malachai.
Ambrose inclined his head. “Go on.”
“Teleportation.” They could move through connected space in short bursts, but not through time. Handy, but irritating to master in that Nick had screwed it up a lot in the beginning and had embarrassed himself royally as he ended up in a few places he hadn’t meant to.
Yeah, not some of his finer memories. Puberty was bad enough. Puberty combined with sporadic bursts of popping in and out of rooms and clothes …
Nightmare levels that drove even the bravest into therapy.
“Next?” Ambrose prompted.
“Silkspeech.” Another of the easier powers to master. The ability to sway the minds of the weak and influence thought. To make them do or think what you wanted. One of Nick’s favorite powers, especially with his teachers, and very handy for saving him from detention at school. And getting him out of parking tickets.
Sadly, it didn’t work with his stubborn mother, or girlfriend. And if he tried it on Caleb, that resulted in massive bruising both to his body and ego.
“You’re halfway there, kid.”
Nick went for another aggravating one that misfired more than it worked correctly. “Clairvoyance.” Because the future wasn’t set, that one could be seriously tricky. The ability to see an ever-changing future was like trying to jump onboard a moving train. You had to time it correctly and make sure you didn’t misjudge your steps. Or miss seeing the blurry telephone pole that was about to take your head off if you failed to see it in time. It also required opening his senses to the aether he was in now. To be able to see, hear and experience a heightened realm and to leave his body behind so that he could see the entire universe.
It was frightening here. A part of him was always scared he wouldn’t make it back to his body. That he’d get lost and be adrift forever. But once tapped, he could find anything. Hear anyone. See the past. Present or future. It was like time traveling in a way. You just had to be able to make sense of it and understand it.
And not get drowned or overwhelmed by it all—a very tricky thing to do.
“And?”
“Dude! Don’t rush me,” he bristled at Ambrose. If anyone knew how much he hated to be pushed, it was himself.
Ambrose gave him a peeved, droll stare.
Yeah, well, he deserved it.
Nick cleared his throat before he continued. “Telekinesis.” Another one that had been relatively easy to master. At least when it involved his Malachai tools. They usually came whenever he called them. Other objects could be a little harder as they had a tendency to hit him in the head and other body parts he didn’t want to think about. Mostly because that tended to make him walk funny for a few.
“You’re almost there.”
His pocket heated up to remind him of his favorite one. It was where he kept his pendulum at all times as he was prone to lose things. “Divination and conjuring.” Again, they could be tricky, but so long as he stayed focused, they weren’t so bad. And though most people thought divination was the same as clairvoyance, it wasn’t. Divination and conjuring relied on using objects or tools in order to read signs or learn about the higher senses. Those were an entirely different set of skills.
Ambrose nodded. “Almost there.”
“Summoning.” And he definitely wasn’t fond of it as the ability to bring or summon any demon into his realm came without any effort whatsoever. All he needed was their correct name.
Sometimes not even that. It was one power Nick could do without as it’d gotten him into all kinds of trouble over the years. Not to mention, his current “pet” Zavid. Although the hellhound would be the first to protest that label, it was still apropos. Nick hadn’t meant to bind Zavid to him as a servant, but again, as the Malachai, it was just a little too easy to do it.
Sadly, it was much harder to break.
“You forgot one. The most important one, too.”
Nick froze as he ran back through them. “No, I didn’t.”
“Yeah, you did. Think about it for a minute.” Then Ambrose ran over the list again. “There are ten powers. You named nine. Necromancy. Perspicacity. Teleportation. Silkspeech. Clairvoyance. Telekinesis. Divination and conjuring. And summoning … That’s nine.”
He was right. ’Course there was a reason why he’d forgotten the last one. It was one Nick didn’t play around with because it was the one he screwed up with the most. And it was the one you really didn’t want to screw up as it had some of the worst consequences, hence Vawn’s predicament of being a guy trapped in the body of a girl. And it’d been the one that had caused his friend Madaug to be turned into a goat for a while. “Transformation.”
“Yeah,” Ambrose breathed. “Transformation.”
Nick froze as he finally understood what his older incarnation was trying to tell him. “Cyprian isn’t in his real body.”
“No. It’s why you can’t recognize him or feel another Malachai around you.”
Just like he didn’t see the Dark-Hunter bow and arrow mark on Ambrose’s face whenever he appeared to him or the Malachai marks. Because they hid those. A Malachai could appear as anyone or anything he chose to.
Like Simi, or any of the Charonte demons. They could have any body or appearance they wanted.
Young. Old.
Crap …
And with a Malachai here, Nick’s powers would be weaker and weaker. His son would drain him until he was too weak to fight. “Why is he here? Do you know? I mean, if he kills me, he won’t be born. Right?”
“You have never learned to ask the right questions, kid. Don’t you get it?”
He faded into the abyss.
“Wait! Come back!”
Nick growled in frustration. “If you know the answer, why don’t you tell me!” He hated whenever they did that crap with him. Why did they have to play these games? Why not spill the beans and let him make soup or toss it?
“I swear I’m getting a tumor from all this!” Nick sighed as he listened to the voices in the aether and tried to sort through the madness of it all. Millions of thoughts came at him simultaneously. A cacophony of complaints, needs and wants. No wonder the gods tuned them out. You had to or you’d lose your mind.
It was unrelenting. People ricocheted through life like random pinballs speeding through one giant machine. Everything about it made him dizzy.
Honestly, he didn’t know how Acheron remained sane. In some ways, he wished Ambrose had never told him about his future.
Closing his eyes, Nick tapped the very powers he’d mentioned. His clairvoyance opened and left him standing over his mother’s body.
Left him in the darkness of his own home, feeling betrayed by Acheron and Kyrian for allowing the Daimons they fought to murder her in cold blood.
More than that was the guilt. He should have been there. Tears streamed down his face as pain lacerated him. His mother had given him life. Had sheltered and protected him with everything she had. And how had he returned her love?
He’d left her defenseless when she needed him most. On the very night when the Daimons had come to his door in the guise of a Dark-Hunter, Nick had been out with the other Squires patrolling to protect strangers.
Not his mother.
He’d left her in the hands of the immortal protectors who’d sworn to keep humans safe from the demons who preyed on them. Trusted in Acheron and his army to shelter the only person he needed and loved.
A woman who had been kind and caring toward all of them. Nick choked on a sob as he saw her throat slashed open and her glazed, glassy eyes that accused him of carelessness.
This was his unstoppable future.
The one pith point he couldn’t change. No matter what he tried, all roads led him here.
Throwing his head back, he shouted out in agony. Why couldn’t he save her? With all the powers he had?
We are destruction …
The voice of the Malachai whispered through him. It was a thunderous, dark sound that he knew well. An amalgam of all his predecessors. Older than time, it reverberated through his entire being.
With it came that surge of power. Primal and raw. Nick forced it down. He didn’t want to go Malachai.
Not now.
He needed to stay rational and to figure this out. He couldn’t give in to the hatred. There was too much on the line. Too many that he cared about.
“I won’t let you tell me who I am,” he breathed. “I am Nick Gautier.” Tomorrow, he might become Ambrose Malachai. But it wouldn’t be today.
No. Not today.
Suddenly, his phone rang. Jumping, he answered it, no longer thinking it peculiar. Peculiar was becoming his new middle name.
However, that being said, what he did find shocking was to find Virgil Ward on the other end.
“You remember me, kid?”
“Um, yeah.”
As a blood-sucking attorney, literally, Virgil was a hard creature to forget. A little over six feet tall, he didn’t appear to be any older than sixteen or seventeen—Nick’s age when Virgil had been turned into a real vampire after a demon had bitten him. Now he spent eternity working night court for the damned and preternatural as part of the Laurens and Ward Law Firm in a posh downtown office.
Virgil was also the only one whose powers of persuasion and masking put Nick’s to shame. That boy could pull the wool over anyone’s eyes.
“Good. I just got off the phone with your mom and I’m going to walk you into the police station to see about this matter where they want to talk to you, and make sure you don’t hit lock-up, for reasons we all know. Where are you?”
“Do you know a guy named Takeshi?”
“As in the zeitjäger, kick-your-hide-sideways?”
“That’d be the one.”
“Very familiar. Still have the boot prints on my left cheek. You with him?”
“Affirmative.”
“Good lad. Safe place. I like it. Can you put him on the phone for me?”
Before Nick could answer, a strange buzzing started on the line. One that drowned out Virgil’s voice. His vision dimmed. Pain exploded through his head and left him in absolute agony.
What the heck?
He blinked in an effort to clear his vision. Yet all it did was make him queasy. Dizzier. The darkness lifted into a bright, searing light that made it even harder for him to see.
Tires squealed.
Before Nick could recover, something slammed into him and sent him careening through the air.
An instant later, he landed on the pavement and realized that he’d been struck by a car.
Unable to move, he lay in the street as his entire body throbbed. Voices assaulted him. He tried to get up and focus.
Everything was hazy and surreal.
You are mine, Malachai. And I will make you bleed …