Inferno (17 page)

Nick draped his arm around Marlon’s shoulders. “While that will help you with your dance card, Marls, it will leave the four of us relegated to tundra status at school. Please have mercy on us. We beg you.”

He sighed wearily. “Fine. But we could change it to Five Angry Men. ’Course
I’m
not angry, but I’m willing to learn.”

Nick laughed as Alex chimed in with approval.

Duff nodded.

“Five Angry Men, it is.” Eric went to clap Duff on the back.

“Don’t touch me!” he growled like the panther he was.

Eric jumped back.

Casey leaned against Nick and smiled at him. “Told you you could play the drums.”

Something in her tone set his inner warning system off. “How did you know?”

She shrugged. “You look like a drummer.”

He also looked like an idiot in the tacky shirts his mother insisted he wear, but that was definitely untrue.

He hoped.

Suddenly suspicious of her, Nick handed the sticks to Alex, who refused to take them back.

“Keep them. We’re going to be practicing here in Eric’s garage three nights a week. If you want extra time, you can use Damien’s practice kit in the club room at Sanctuary. The Howlers usually practice really late at night or early in the morning. So the kit should be free for your use during after-school hours.”

Nick was touched by Alex’s generosity. But then that was one thing about the bears, they were all kindhearted and had been stone-cold decent to him and his mom.

“When’s the first practice?” Nick asked.

Alex zipped his guitar into a black gig bag. “Day after tomorrow. Four to six.”

Nick sucked his breath in sharply. “That conflicts with football.”

Alex considered it for a minute, then looked over to the others. “Can we do seven to nine?”

Duff shrugged. “I don’t care.”

“Fine with my schedule,” Marlon said.

Eric nodded. “Tabby might be a little nuts since it’ll cut into her vampire stalking time, but that shouldn’t be too big a deal. She prefers I play in a band, anyway.”

Nick had to bite back a laugh about that. He’d met Eric’s girlfriend, Tabitha Devereaux, before he’d met Eric. While she was sexy on a level unto herself, she was a bit touched in the head.

“Seven it is,” Alex said, dragging Nick’s thoughts back to them. “We’ll see you then.”

“All right.”

Casey wrapped herself around him and walked him back toward her car. She beamed at him the whole way. “How do you feel, Nick?”

He hated to admit it, but … “Unbelievably good about myself. Thank you for making me do this.”

“No problem. Sometimes we don’t know what our talents are until we try.”

Maybe. Still, he would never have listed this on his résumé. Of course, he was sure it was his powers that gave him this ability. Like the answer in chem class …

He was growing stronger every day.

“I’m in a band,” he breathed, unable to believe it. He’d always wanted to be in one. The dream had been so strong that he’d never really spoken about it to his mom. Mostly because he didn’t want to upset her over the fact that they couldn’t afford it.

Now that they could …

He was going to rock the house down, and use his powers for something other than evil.

*   *   *

Inside Artemis’s temple on Mount Olympus, Ambrose stumbled as a fierce pain ripped through his skull. It was a familiar agony he’d learned all too well these last few years.

Nick had changed something in their past that had affected their future.

Closing his eyes, he tried to see what it was that had altered. But before he could, another wave of misery consumed him. And this one drove him to his knees.

“What are you doing, Nick?” he breathed, trying to push the pain away enough so that he could focus.

It was useless. The agony pulled him under and refused to let him go.

“Ambrose?”

He winced at Artemis’s voice that resonated inside his aching skull.

She knelt beside him, then gasped. “Your nose is bleeding.”

That he already knew since he could taste it. She cupped his face in her hands.

“I’m all right, Artie.”

Artemis shook her head in denial. “You don’t appear to be all right. You look rather sick and pale.”

Worse, he was shaking. “I need blood.”

She pulled the curly red hair back from her neck in an open invitation. The sight of her alabaster skin made him salivate. But her blood wasn’t what he needed right now.

“The demon’s blood.”

Color faded from her cheeks. “You’re almost out. You told me not to let you use it anymore.”

“I have no choice. Something’s wrong.” He panted as he felt his powers grow even stronger. More fierce. His skin began to turn from tawny to the red and black swirling skin of the Malachai.

Artemis shrank back from him.

Ambrose wrestled with the demon that was kicking inside him, demanding release. Growling, he fought for control with everything he had. But it wasn’t easy. The beast was so much more than it’d been.

What have you done, boy?

His memories were shifting and rearranging so fast that it left him sick to his stomach.

For a moment, he saw his mother on that fateful night when she’d been killed, and thought that maybe, just maybe, this time they had saved her. But it was a false hope. Artemis’s bow-and-arrow mark was still on his face and his mother remained dead.

Yet the most frightening realization came a second later. Instead of them pushing the Malachai into eternal submission, Nick had just released him.

Ambrose felt his humanity leave as his vision turned from human to the red haze of rage. He no longer cared about anyone or anything. All he could taste was blood. All he could feel was hate. Enough with humanity and their disease. It was time for them to yield their world to their masters.…

He rose to his feet as his wings unfurled.

Artemis screamed.

Laughing, he lunged for her.

CHAPTER 9

Nick barely recognized himself as he stared into the full-length store mirror in front of him. Casey had all but strong-armed him into a frou-frou salon that smelled way too much like perfume to get his hair cut, and then forced him into Saks Fifth Avenue to shop for something less hideous to wear. All his life, he’d walked past the Shops at Canal Place and wondered what it’d be like to have enough money to shop here.

His first excursion had been a few months ago when he’d bought a shirt for Kyrian’s birthday. As strange as it sounded, it hadn’t occurred to him to buy clothes for himself.

Now …

He grinned at the sight of the expensive black pants, belt, and black silk shirt he wore. Yeah, this was definitely the life. “I make this look
good
.”

Casey laughed. “I love it when you flash those dimples at me.”

That landed like a punch to his nose. Nick stopped smiling immediately, and cleared his throat.

She tsked at him. “How on earth did I upset you by complimenting you?”

“I hate my dimples,” he said in a low but emphatic tone. “They’re girly.”

She made a loud sound of total disagreement. “They are not. They’re girl magnets, maybe, but definitely not gir
ly
. Why would you think that?”

He wiped at his cheeks where the dimples were hiding, wishing he could remove them forever. “There was a woman in church when I was a kid who always said I smiled so pretty that I should have been born a girl. It wouldn’t have been so bad had I not always had a feeling that my mother would’ve preferred a daughter over me.”

She appeared aghast at the comment. “How can you possibly think that?”

Nick shrugged as he remembered the unguarded expressions on his mother’s face when he caught her wistfully touching tiny ruffled dresses in stores, or the way her longing gaze would follow after little girls with their mothers. But he didn’t want to share that with Casey. “I don’t know.”

“Has she ever said that to you?”

She’d made jokes about it from time to time. And he didn’t want to admit it out loud either. “Nah, I guess not.”

Casey leaned up against his back and wrapped her arms around his waist. She smiled at him in the mirror. “Trust me, Nick. You look hot in this. Completely edible.”

That caused his right eyebrow to shoot up all on its own as heat scorched his cheeks and his thoughts burned with images he was still too young to have in his head. They made him even more uncomfortable than being in an expensive store where he felt like a fraud, and kept waiting for the security guard to come throw him out.

“So what do you think?” the clerk asked as he joined them.

“He’ll take it,” Casey said before Nick had a chance to speak.

Nick hesitated, knowing his mother would never approve of an all-black outfit. She’d have all manner of fits.

But he did like it.…

“Ooo, Akri-Nick, looking spiffy like the Simi in your all-black clothes. Except you’re a boy and not a Simi, but you know what the Simi means. You finally coming into the demon world in all your finery. Now all we needs is to get you some barbecue sauce, and a big ole plate of Cajun
boudin rouge,
cracklin’ and hog’s head cheese. Yum. Yum. Yum!”

Laughing at the unique singsong accent that was unlike anything else he’d ever heard, Nick turned as Simi came up on his right and paused to look into the mirror over his left shoulder.

A little odd … no, take that back, a
lot
odd, Simi was another good, demonic friend of his. Today her ever-changing black hair had a purple stripe on the left-hand side that matched the short, frilly skirt and Doc Martens she wore. A matching purple corset peeked out from beneath an ornate black lace jacket that reminded him of an anime drawing. She was absolutely breathtaking and always good for a laugh. “Hey, girl! What are you doing here?”

With a wide smile, Simi lifted her arms to show him two wrists full of bangles that she jangled. “Buying the Simi some new sparklies. I was feeling kind of low ’cause of that heifer goddess Akri won’t let me eat, and thought some good eats would cheer me right up, and I know they will.” She snapped her teeth together.

Nick still had no idea who the heifer goddess or the Akri was that she spoke about all the time. She acted as if he knew, and if he asked her, she’d say as much. Which really didn’t help him figure out their identities.

Simi pursed her lips. “What you doing here all alone, by yourself, with no one else?”

Casey wrapped a possessive arm around his waist and tugged him away from Simi’s grasp. “He’s not alone … By far.”

Could her tone be any icier?

But Simi was undaunted and uninsulted as she glanced around the store in sharp, short head gestures that reminded him of a bird. “Where’s Akra-Kody? I know she didn’t leave you alone, by your lonesome. She know better ’cause Cajun boy get into all manner of trouble whenever he’s left on his own, by himself.”

Her words returned the lump of sadness to his stomach. Simi was right. He and Kody had been basically inseparable.

Until now.

“We broke up.”

Simi made a tsking noise that sounded strangely like someone typing on a keyboard. “Now why you want to go and leave a perfectly good akra for something else?” She passed a less than complimentary glare over Casey’s body. “And here the Simi thought men traded up, not down…” She dropped her voice to a deep baritone. “Like way down. Bottom of the barrels.”

Casey came around him with a snarl.

Nick caught her and pulled her back. He’d seen Simi in a fight and Casey was no match for an angry demon with mad Simi skills. And if Simi had her customary barbecue sauce in that coffin-shaped purse she always carried, she’d make really short work of Casey.

“Maybe we should talk about this later, Simi?” he asked pointedly.

Simi hissed at Casey like a cat. “We can talk later, but the Simi say you not gonna listen ’cause you hearing something else right now and it ain’t got nothing to do with your boy ears or brains but rather your boy parts.” She held her hand up imperiously to keep them from interrupting her. “But mark the Simi’s words, Mr. Gautier. Some counsel…” Hesitating, she pressed her finger to her lips in thought. “Or is it council?” She waved it away with a flounce. “Oh who cares? Some things ain’t worth listening to. So don’t let them things into your head, Nicky, where they,” she lowered her voice to where he could barely hear her, “whisper, whisper, whisper.” She straightened up and pinned Casey with a gimlet stare. “Ticked-off demons are hard to exorcize and get out of your skin. Trust me on that ’cause the Simi know
her
demons … and
their
demons, too.”

With one last nasty hiss at Casey, Simi turned and stalked off.

Nick started to go after her, but Casey stopped him.

“You need to pay for your clothes, Nick.”

Oh yeah … dang. Last thing he wanted was to be arrested for shoplifting in Saks. How could he have forgotten so easily? The soft, well-fitting clothes felt very different from his usual hand-me-down wear.

Still, he turned his head to look past Casey, trying to see where Simi was going. But it was too late. She’d vanished completely.

Dang, that demon could motor.…

Sighing, he left Casey’s side and returned to the dressing room to change into his old clothes, then he went to the register where he almost choked at the price of his shirt alone. But the clerk didn’t take mercy on him or his wallet as he rang Nick out. The cost of it all made him hyperventilate. Holy cow and beef jerky …

Really?

To his credit, he didn’t show his mortification, even though he wanted to cradle his wallet to his chest and run for the door before he bought things he really didn’t need. It was so hard to act nonchalant over something tantamount to two months’ rent. Thank goodness his mama wasn’t here. She’d beat him for the waste.

Good lord, when did it get so expensive to buy a pair of shoes, socks, one black T-shirt, and three outfits? No wonder his mom shopped at Goodwill. Those ugly shirts weren’t so ugly after all.

Don’t think about it, Nick. You make enough money now, and besides, their cost is the least of your current problems.