“You didn’t.”
That wasn’t true, but he appreciated her saying it. At the end of the day, he was the Malachai. Whatever his future self did, it was him, too.
Now he understood why Ambrose was so desperate to change the past. His future self had told him that he could feel the last of the goodness inside him dying. That any day, he expected the Malachai to devour his conscience and render him a merciless monster. Because of it, Ambrose was barely sane at times as he tried to keep Nick from making the same mistakes he’d made at Nick’s age. To steer Nick onto another path that kept him firmly planted in the light.
And once that decency was gone, the Malachai would take over and kill everything and everyone. That was what his species had been born to do.
Man, it sucked.
“You should have told me the truth before now, Kody.”
“You weren’t ready to hear it, and you definitely weren’t ready to accept the reality of what you’re headed toward.”
Who would be? No one in their right mind wanted to be told that they would one day destroy the entire world and everyone who lived in it. That they would kill or cause the death of every being who mattered to them.
And so what if she was right? It still stung that she’d lied to him and kept such a huge secret. “Is that why you came to see me in the hospital after I’d been shot? Were you planning to kill me?”
She looked away. “I was supposed to kill you that first day we met at St. Richard’s.”
That news floored him and flooded him with memories. Even now, he could visualize her clearly that day in his mind when he’d first seen her standing in the office—it seemed like a lifetime ago. She’d looked like a vision. So sweet and innocent. Confused by her new school, or so he’d thought. Meanwhile, there she’d been with the intent of ending his life. “Why didn’t you?”
She laughed bitterly before she met his gaze. “You were so not what I thought you’d be. I went there expecting a cruel Malachai to battle to the death. Someone like Stone.” The bully who’d caused him to be sent to the office. “And instead I found a sweet, bashful, respectful boy who wore the tackiest shirt imaginable just to make his mother happy and not hurt her feelings, even though everyone else mocked him for it. One who gladly took a beating to protect his saintly mother’s reputation. An innocent soul who found humor at the worst of times and who held himself up with hard-won pride even when everyone else was relentlessly trying to knock you down. You have inside you a purity that is so rare. The capacity to love unconditionally and completely. In spite of what you are, and as unbelievable as it is, you are truly decent.”
Swallowing hard, she wiped at her eyes. “Gah, it gets so confusing for me. I just can’t reconcile the creature I know you will become—the heartless beast I have battled—with the man you are, here and now.”
Savitar handed her a tissue. “Life hammers us all. Too many times we become things we never thought we’d be. For many reasons.”
Kody drew a ragged breath as Nick pulled her against him and held her.
He buried his face in her hair and inhaled the sweet, precious scent. “But now that I know, Kody, I won’t hurt you. How could I?”
She shook her head. “You don’t understand, Nick. When your blood takes over you, you won’t be able to stop. The Malachai will control you, not the other way around. If you could stop it, I wouldn’t be here. I’d be snatched back to my time to live out the life I should have had. But the mere fact that I continue to exist as a ghost says that you will ultimately kill me.”
“I refuse to accept that.”
She patted his chest. “You are ever a stubborn Cajun.”
“Dat right, cher. Born on da bayou, with boudin in one hand and gumbo in the other, and riding a gator.”
That succeeded in getting her to laugh. “You were born on Menyara’s couch and you hate those stereotypes.”
“Yeah, but I am proud to be Cajun and I happily embrace my stereotype … sometimes.”
Bubba shook his head. “It is so disconcerting to hear a stranger speaking out of my son’s body. Talking about things I know my boy has never seen or done. How are you coping with this?” he asked Kody.
She straightened up in the seat. “I don’t see your son when I look at him, Michael. I see the lunatic I’m in love with. Blue eyes, dark hair, big ears, and a goofy grin ringed by dimples.”
Nick gasped in indignation. “I don’t have big ears.”
“Yeah, you do.” She reached up to touch one. “Not in this body, but the one at home … total Dumbo. You really don’t need your wings to fly. You could just wiggle the ears and catch a breeze.”
He pretended to be wounded by her teasing. “Now that’s just cruel, woman.”
With an innocent expression, she held her hands up to her ears and waved her fingers like wings.
Savitar rolled his eyes. “You know what truly terrifies me, Michael?”
“Very little?”
“Well, yeah … that’s true. But for the moment, it’s the fact that the fate of the entire universe rests in their hands.” He shifted his gaze to Kody. “You really should do us all a favor and end him while you can.”
She scoffed at words that seriously offended Nick. “Don’t take it to heart, hon. Savitar had a chance to kill you himself and instead, he taught you how to surf.”
Savitar screwed his face up as if surfing was the most repugnant thing he could imagine. “Surf?”
She nodded. “I asked you once why you didn’t kill Nick during the two years he spent with you on your island, and you know what you said?”
“I’m an idiot?”
“No,” she said with a laugh. “You told me it wasn’t your place or his time. That he still had good he needed to do and that if you’d killed him then, people you love would have suffered because Nick wouldn’t have been there to help them when they needed it. But what you didn’t say was what my father told me later. That in spite of all your denials and gruffness, you, like my father, carry hope. You curse it, but for whatever reason, no matter what the world does to you, you can’t let it go.”
Savitar made a sound of ultimate disgust. “I take back what I said. Your father’s the idiot.”
“No, he wasn’t. He was the most intelligent man I’ve ever known. Even you respected him, Mr. Hostile.”
“And I find that impossible to believe.”
Nick took a moment to study Savitar. He knew from his future self that Savitar would be important to him one day. But he didn’t know when or why. Only that this was an extremely powerful being.
A shiver went over him as he leaned to whisper in Kody’s ear. “Are you sure Savitar is on our side?”
“I can hear you, kid,” Savitar growled. “And yeah. I’m on your side.”
“Just checking. My other former allies turned out to be myths. And you,” Nick said to Bubba, “are supposed to be in a meeting right now.”
“I was in a meeting when the priest called. With Savitar, who was explaining you and Kody to me.”
Nick scowled. “You already knew Savitar?”
The men exchanged an amused look.
“Yeah,” Bubba said. “For a long time now. We’ve headed off many a Daimon invasion.”
That was an interesting turn Nick hadn’t expected. “So you’re as crazy here as you are in my world?”
Kody laughed. “No. Michael’s much more sane here, but he does stalk the night, protecting what he loves … with Mark.”
“What about Mom? Does she know any of this?”
Bubba shook his head. “I’ve kept all my nocturnal activities away from you and your mom. After the way she reacted when we were attacked years ago, I knew better than to let her in on anything me and Mark do. Not to mention, I didn’t want to endanger either of you.”
“What attack?” Nick asked.
“When you … or rather my son, was a baby, y’all were at home alone. I came in just as the Daimon grabbed your mother. I fought him off, but she had a hard time coping with what had happened. With the fact that her attacker wasn’t human. But after that, I knew I couldn’t just stand by and do nothing while those creatures ran loose on innocent people. Sometimes, you’ve just got to take a stand. For yourself and for others.”
Nick smiled. “You’ve said that last bit to me a lot over the years … that and don’t double tap when you can pull a triple.”
“And that you’d rather be judged by twelve than carried by six,” Kody chimed in.
Savitar snorted. “Sounds like you’re basically the same in both worlds.”
“I guess so,” Bubba drawled. “Dang, and here I always thought I was original. One of a kind.”
While they drove through the city, Nick wondered if that event Bubba had described was what had killed Bubba’s family in his world. When Kody had told him Bubba’s wife and son had been murdered, he’d assumed the assailant had been human. But if it’d been something supernatural …
It would definitely explain a lot about Nick’s favorite lunatic.
As they turned onto Ursulines, the sky above them darkened with clouds. And it came on fast.
They collectively sucked in their breaths.
“That’s bad, isn’t it?” Nick asked.
Kody nodded an instant before lightning struck their SUV and sent it careening. To Bubba’s credit, he kept it upright, but it was toast as they came to a harsh stop, and barely missed hitting a parked car by the breadth of a hand. Bubba tried to start the engine.
It wouldn’t even turn over.
Nick ground his teeth as he heard an all-too-familiar sound from far away. One that was drawing nearer. “Please, someone, tell me those aren’t wings.”
“We can say that, but we’d be lying.” Savitar opened the door and sent a blast of fire into the air.
Nick unbuckled his belt and opened his door. “Can we make it to Sanctuary?”
Kody shook her head. “There’s no Sanctuary here, Nick.”
His jaw went slack with her news. No. It wasn’t possible. How could there not be a Sanctuary in New Orleans? “What?”
“They don’t have Were-Hunters in this realm.”
He was even more aghast. “None? Seriously?”
“None,” Savitar repeated as he grabbed Nick from the SUV and shoved him toward the curb. “Michael, get the kids to the convent. I’ll cover you.”
Bubba pulled out a gun the likes of which Nick had never seen before as they ran down the street. Nick looked up at the dark sky and gaped at the sight of a thousand winged demons that were headed straight at them.
“Run!” Savitar barked as he sent more fire blasts at the demons.
Nick didn’t hesitate.
As soon as Nick reached the convent wall, he heard shots. He started to look back, but he knew better. That fool always got eaten in movies. And Nick didn’t want to be on anyone’s menu.
Except maybe Kody’s, but not when they were on a death run from things out to kill them.
He dashed to the gate, and tried to open it. It was locked tight. And the demons were landing on the street in front of the church entrance.
Shooting her own fire blasts at them, Kody met his fearful stare.
Without thinking, he grabbed her and threw her up on the wall as high as he could.
She scrambled over the top then leaned back and held her hand out to him. “Come on, Nick.”
He took a running start and leaped for it. His hand touched hers an instant before he was thrown to the ground, on the wrong side of the fence.
“Nick!”
Dazed from the impact, Nick kicked the demon off him. But as he tried to rise, three more landed on his back and drove him to the ground again. His ears rang with the sound of their hisses and flapping wings.
Something warm and wet covered his face.
Blood. His blood.
He grimaced as pain consumed him. So this was how his life ended. Not with some great battle against horrible odds, or from some noble sacrifice for the ones he loved.
It ended with hell-monkeys slobbering all over him.
CHAPTER 8
Nick was still trying to get free when all of a sudden something knocked the demons off his back and sent them flying. And not with their wings.
“Get your filthy paws off my son, feet pue tan!”
Nick’s eyes widened at the Cajun insult his mother hurled at the demons as she literally batted them away from him. Where had she learned that? He hadn’t even known she’d ever heard such. For that matter, she once washed his mouth out because he called someone an idiot.
Impressed, and terrified of her, Nick held his hands up to shield his face as she came a little too close with her frenetic swings. “Ma! I’m under here. Don’t kill me!”
She jerked him up from the street by his arm and shoved him toward the convent, where Kody had opened the small pedestrian gate. “Get inside, Boo.”