Invision (17 page)

The moment he'd discovered his son's treachery, Jaden had declared his hatred and enmity. “I welcomed you into my home! Why would you do this to me?”

Xev had returned his glower without flinching or shirking. “For all the years you didn't welcome me, Father. For every lash and insult I've been given in your name, and for all the years I was forced to serve them as an animal because you refused to acknowledge me as your son. I do this for her, and I go free. You owe me this!”

“I owe you
nothing
save my hatred.”

“Then we are even, after all.”

Worse? It'd been a trick. Azura had still refused to release Xev even after he'd handed Jaden over to her. Instead, she'd laughed in his face and slapped him for being stupid and gullible enough to believe her lies.

So as a final act of defiance, he'd freed his father two days later. Rather than return the favor, Jaden had left him behind, locked in his cell as punishment, even while Xev had begged his father for mercy and forgiveness. Even while he'd begged his father for death.

“You can't leave me here … you can't conceive what she'll do to me for it!”

“Like I care? Rot here with your mother and her demons. I never want to lay eyes on you again, you treacherous bastard! You are no son of mine!”

And so Xev had been left to face his mother's unreasoning wrath.

Nick flinched as he felt the nightmare Xev had barely survived.

Jaden had no idea what he'd condemned his child to. Any more than Caleb understood the nightmare that had been Xev's existence. It was why Xev still lashed out and trusted no one. Why he had a hard time accepting kindness of any sort. While Lil had saved Caleb, it was nothing compared to what Myone had done for Xev.

Xev swallowed hard as Jaden finally stepped away from him.

“You'll be fine to return.”

Lowering his shirt, he cut a suspicious grimace toward Jaden. “Can I trust your word, this time?”

“He's not lying to you, Xev, and you know I won't leave you behind. Not for anything. They come for you, they deal with me.”

His gaze softened as he reached out and pulled Nick to his chest so that he could hold him. He clutched his fist in Nick's hair so hard, his hand trembled. It was weird and awkward, but Nick tolerated it by reminding himself that Xev didn't see him as a boy-toy.

He saw him as his child. His great-grandson. His last link to Myone and to the son he'd been forced to give up in order to keep that child safe from being treated the way he had. Rather than watch his child be raised in the same environment he'd known, he'd returned to the shadows to live alone and watch from a distance as the woman he loved more than his life took another husband who believed Xev's child to be his.

So long as she'd lived and their son had been protected and safe, Xev had been leashed and content.

But the moment she was gone and their son enslaved …

He'd been an insane, suicidal monster ever since. Not caring who he harmed or what happened to the world or himself.

Until now.

Everything had changed the moment he'd learned what Menyara had done and that Nick's mom was his granddaughter. Since then, Xev had become a worse Velcro Nick-don't-skin-your-knees monster than his mother was most days. He was lucky Xev hadn't bubble-wrapped the bathroom to make sure Nick didn't injure himself whenever he went in to brush his teeth.

Xev had even modulated the water pressure and temperature to barely more than a lukewarm drip, because
you just
never
knew
 …

Sighing, Nick patted him on the back. “You good? 'Cause, no offense, you're freaking me out, Gramps.”

Laughing, Xev kissed him on the head before he let go.

Nick ran his hand through his hair to settle it back into place. “We really need to get you your own pet or teddy bear or something.”

“No, we just need to make sure you don't get hurt.”

Nick nodded, then turned around to face Jaden. “So what exactly's involved in doing this? We sacrifice a Lego? Bathe under the light of a full moon? Eat nachos? Yank on Acheron's coat and run before he catches us?”

Jaden wore that same pained expression his teachers often had whenever they saw him in their room on the first day of class and realized he was there to stay and not dropping off books for a friend, especially his English teacher.

Like they were nursing an ulcer.

He glanced at Kody. “Is he always like this?”

“Yes.”

“Poor you.”

Kody screwed her face up. “You know … a lot of people say that to me.”

“Yeah, it's beginning to give me a complex.”

Laughing, she kissed Nick's cheek. “Don't listen to them. I think you're wonderful. Just the way you are.”

“I really appreciate that, Kode. And I love and adore you. But the mere fact that you go out with me and continue to do so brings your entire ability to reason and judge into question.”

Laughing, she wrapped her arm around his waist and buried her face against his shoulder blade. Nick sucked his breath in sharply, savoring the warmth of her body pressed against his back. She had no idea what that embrace did to him. What it meant to his sanity.

Then again, she was his anchor. Maybe she did know and that was why whenever he needed her most, she was here to keep him grounded. For all the preternatural abilities and magic he normally wielded, they paled in comparison to the sorcery of her touch. She alone could tame the Malachai inside him and bend it to her will.

He was completely helpless where she was concerned. And he couldn't imagine a world where that would ever change.

Sobering, she peeked up at Jaden. “Don't let him get harmed. Nick better come back whole and healthy or else you're going to meet the Bathymaas side of me.”

Jaden's eyes widened. “You're threatening me?”

“I'm promising you.” She gave Nick a fierce hug before she rose up on her tiptoes to whisper in his ear. “Please stay out of trouble.”

“
Cher,
you know how hard I try. But when the devil be wanting a
fais do-do,
what's a po' boy to do?”

“Stay out of trouble,” she repeated. “I mean it.”

“I will do my best.”

Her eyes sad, she nodded and let go of him. Then she went to Xev to give him a hug. “Be careful, especially since you're hauling the trouble magnet.”

Nick clapped his hands together. “All right. What—”

A bright light cut his words off.

One second they were in the remains of Menyara's store and in the next, he was standing outside of St. Louis Cathedral.

At least that was what it looked like it used to be.

His heart pounding in terror, Nick turned around slowly to see that he was definitely in what remained of Jackson Square. But it was currently on fire. The Pontalba Buildings and Cabildo … even the Café Du Monde were all ablaze. This was a hellacious inferno. Bodies were strewn like contorted dolls in the street. Cars were twisted, burned-out chassis, interspersed with military equipment that included the remains of tanks and even downed helicopters.

Bile rose in his throat to choke him. He felt the color drain from his face as he realized that Jaden had dropped him straight into ground zero of his worst nightmare.

This wasn't before Ambrose had lost his mind.

This was at the height of him and his army destroying the world.

Xev appeared as stunned as Nick was while they both turned in slow circles to stare agape at the unholy destruction around them. “How is this possible?”

Nick swallowed hard at the devastation. “This is what I've been seeing in my visions. It's what Ambrose has been warning me about.”

Suddenly, a loud pterodactylesque scream sounded. They turned in synch to find a huge red-fleshed demon bearing down on them from the sky. Closing the distance between them, Xev grabbed Nick to shield him with his body.

Just as the beast would have reached Nick with its claws, it burst apart with an ear-splintering cry. Blood and entrails rained down everywhere, along with hot fire that luckily Xev used his powers to deflect.

Straightening, Xev loosened his hold. Disgusted by the mess, Nick lifted his head as the smoke around them swirled and dissipated a bit.

Out of the darkness stepped the last person he'd expected to see.

It was his lunatic demon friend, Simi. Only she appeared older than the teenaged shopping, diamond-eating Goth he knew and adored. Dressed in gleaming armor and with her black hair braided, she was the best sight he could imagine in this madness.

Until her eyes turned bloodred and she nocked an arrow for his throat. Then, he realized that things between them weren't quite the same.

“Simi … it's not what you think.”

“I'm not Simi. I'm her daughter. And you're the worthless bastard who killed her. Now I'm going to kill you!”

 

CHAPTER 9

That was not what Nick had expected the girl in front of him to say.

Ever.

Too shocked to move, he was an easy target for her.

Thankfully, Xev wasn't the idiot he was. He grabbed him as she let loose another arrow for his head and jerked him out of the way of it, just in time.

When she went to release another, Xev used his powers to disarm her. He sent her bow flying, skittering across the burning pavement. “He's not the Malachai who did this!”

“Yeah, right.” She manifested a sword to come after them.

Xev did the same. But he hesitated at using it on the demon. Instead, he protected himself from her attacks, but didn't go on the offensive. “I don't want to hurt you, especially if you're a daughter of Simi's. But I can't allow you to harm him, either. He has to live.”

Her breathing ragged, she stepped back to angle her sword and circle them while debating whether or not to reengage Xev. Or maybe she was looking for a better way to attack him.

Wow, she looked just like her mother. Virtually identical. Nick couldn't get over it. Same height. Same build. All she needed was a bottle of barbecue sauce, Goth clothes, Doc Martens, and a coffin purse, and she'd be the spitting image of the demon who'd kept him amused until his sides ached from laughter over her insightful truths and antics. Not to mention her never-ending quest to find an all-you-can-eat buffet that didn't throw her out after half an hour of her powering through a month's worth of their groceries.

How could he have ever harmed Simi? He loved her. She wasn't just one of his best friends. Simi was family.

This didn't make sense. He knew himself. Nick Gautier didn't hurt the ones he loved. Ever. Malachai or no Malachai. It wasn't in him to be like that.

Was it?

Could he really be
that
treacherous and not know it?

As he tried to understand, his head began to careen as a thousand images tore through him at once and drove him to his knees. How could life change anyone
this
much and turn them into a monster?

How?

And in that moment, he saw the pained expression on Kyrian's face the night he'd asked him what it'd felt like the first time he'd gone into battle as an ancient warrior and taken someone's life.

More than that, he saw and
felt
Kyrian the day he'd actually done it. It wasn't just a vision. It played through him as if it were his own memory. As if he were there in Kyrian's place. Feeling and seeing everything his boss had.

For some reason, he'd thought Kyrian was older when he'd gone off to war.

But his stalwart boss had only been nineteen or twenty at the Battle of Prymaria. More skinny than muscular.

Practically Nick's age …

Back then, Kyrian hadn't been the fierce, competent general Nick knew and respected. Like him, he'd been nothing more than a scared kid, trying to make sense of a world that really was random and nonsensical most of the time. One that seemed a whole lot crueler and more merciless than it needed to be. And that was the hardest part of puberty. Those daily, often brutal, slaps in the face that let him know adulthood was nothing like he'd thought it would be when he was little. That it didn't work the way it was supposed to.

You didn't get to eat dessert for dinner, even though you were now the one in charge of ordering your own food. Your money didn't go to buy all the video games you wanted. Instead of answering to a teacher, you answered to a boss who made you ache for the days when your worst dread was the school bell. You still had to go to bed at a reasonable time and get up early, and do chores you hated, rather than hanging out with your friends. And bullies didn't get the comeuppance they were supposed to, nor did they get left behind on the playground. Now they were your boss and if you punched them in the face like they deserved, you didn't go to the office for suspension or alternative school, you went to jail.

The people willing to stand up for you became far fewer or were nonexistent. And more days than not, you were left feeling alone and abandoned. Unwanted and worthless.

But that being said, life still had a way of taking you by surprise. Just when you were willing to give up on it entirely and throw in the towel—just when you thought people weren't worth the trouble, something or someone would come along and reorient your entire way of thinking.

Some tiny miracle would give you hope in the midst of the darkness and carry you through it, and you would see the beauty of the world anew.

Those were the moments that made life worth living. And they were what everyone clung to in those dark, desolate hours.

Closing his eyes, Nick saw one of those life rafts that stayed with Kyrian to this day …

Exhausted from the grueling march to the town and sickened from the sight of the slaughter that had greeted them, and from the fighting earlier that day, Kyrian had removed his armor to help build funeral pyres and move the slaughtered bodies to them.