What the heck?
In 1990, Nick would have been six. The “Nick” in the photo couldn’t be more than three or four.
“I’m in another coma.” At least that made sense to his scrambled mind.
Yeah, he could definitely go with that. Instead of being sent to the Nether Realm, he was trapped here, wherever here was. Caleb or Kody would wake him up at any moment and everything would be back to normal. He just had to make sure he didn’t get sucked into a hell realm and eaten by a demon or zombie until they figured this out and performed another rescue mission.
C’mon guys, hurry. He wasn’t sure how long his sanity would hold.
Cringing at what he saw in the bathroom mirror, he curled his lip. Gah, it was so strange to see someone else peering back at him. While he’d never been vain, he missed the way he used to look. The dark hair.
And height. He really missed being tall. Short sucked. How did short guys stand it?
Give me growing pains any day over this.
Turning on the shower, he took a moment to replay the last events he remembered through his mind. He’d been in Le Monde au Delà du Voile—the world behind the veil—where his mother had been taken after being kidnapped by demons. He, along with Kody and Caleb, had fought off the huge demonic werewolf Zavid and demons to get her and his father out. His dad had died in the fighting and he’d given Nick all of his Malachai powers. Powers Caleb and Kody had bound up tight until Nick could learn to use them, and to better protect him from the supernatural predators that wanted to kill him and take those powers for themselves.
Nick froze as another fear went through him. His powers were forever malfunctioning. Could the binding potion from last night be the reason for all of this? Had it backfired and changed everything?
Made sense. He’d once turned his friend Madaug into a goat by mistake. Maybe the potion last night had turned Madaug into a douche.…
And me into a short loser.
As he left the shower, he winced at his reflection. “And I thought I was skinny before.…”
Dog, he looked awful. His arms were so frail, he was surprised he didn’t snap them off reaching for the towel. Not the image he wanted for the rest of his life. Toweling his now-blond hair, he tried not to think about it as he dressed and headed downstairs. The only good thing about this weird life was the lack of tacky Hawaiian shirts in his closet. It appeared his mom had finally let go of her Magnum, P.I. fetish and gone shopping somewhere other than Goodwill.
He paused on the stairs to gape at the photos of him, his mom, and Bubba from Nick’s birth to high school. Dang, is there not one incarnation of my life in any alternate universe where my mom didn’t take a photo of me nak*d in the bathtub with a rubber duck? Really? He didn’t know what was more shocking, those weird non-doctored photos or the massive size of this humongous house.
For that matter, it took him several minutes just to find the kitchen. This is worse than trying to navigate Kyrian’s mansion. At least there, he had Rosa to ask for directions whenever he got lost.
Eyes wide, Nick hesitated in the doorway as he saw Bubba at the table, reading The Wall Street Journal while his mom cleaned up the griddle that was part of their massive gas stove. That thing alone looked like something out of an alien movie.
He’d never seen a more normal morning scene in his life. And that scared the bejeezus out of him.
She glanced over to him and smiled. “There’s my favorite Boo. You feeling better, baby?”
Hardly …
“Sure, Ma.”
Bubba checked his watch. “You better grab it to go. I don’t want to have to talk to Mr. Hutchins again about your tardies.”
Nick scowled at the unfamiliar name. “Mr. Hutchins?”
“Principal.” Bubba folded the paper up and placed it on the table.
Nick was even more confused than before. “When did St. Richard’s get another principal? What happened to Mr. Head?” Did zombies eat him, too?
“Who’s Mr. Head?” his mom asked.
Nick stopped while he was way behind. At least until he caught sight of the date on the newspaper by Bubba’s hand. His heart stopped. No flippin’ way. It had to be wrong. “April 22, 2002? Is this a fake paper?”
Bubba frowned at him. “Maybe we should take you to a doctor.”
That was all he needed. A visit to a psych ward. “No, I’m fine. Really.”
Discreetly, Nick pulled out his license and checked his date of birth. His stomach hit the ground. If that was right, he was still sixteen, but that wasn’t the right birth year for him.
Everything here was wrong.
How is this possible? How?
“I better get to school,” Nick breathed. “Where’s my backpack?”
His mom ruffled his hair. “I think you left it in your car.”
“The Jag?”
Bubba burst out laughing. “You wish. I’m not letting you drive the Jag until you’re eighteen, buddy. It’s in your Jeep.”
Okay, go with it. Don’t react.
All is right in my world.
Yeah, right. Nothing about any of this was right or normal. Which, given his royally screwed-up life, said a lot. He wanted to scream until it went back to the way it was supposed to be.
His mom brought the keys to him and held her hand to his forehead again. “Are you sure you’re all right?”
Better a lie than a straightjacket. “Fine.”
“Michael … I’m thinking we might need to take him to a doctor.”
“Sweetheart, you’ve got to quit babying him so. He’s a man with a job. He says he’s fine. He’s fine.”
Nick arched a brow at that. Could he still be working for Kyrian or Liza in this place? If Kyrian was around, he might be able to help. Surely a two-thousand-year-old immortal warrior who’d sold his soul to a goddess would know something about alternate realities. For that matter, Nick might be able to borrow Kyrian’s ring and summon the Greek goddess Artemis himself and get some long overdue answers.
His mother bit her bottom lip as she brushed her hand through Nick’s hair. “He’s still my baby.”
Grateful that hadn’t changed, Nick gave her a quick hug before he headed for the front of the house.
Bubba cleared his throat. “Where are you going, son?”
“The curb.”
“Why? Your Jeep’s in the garage.”
They had a garage?
Nick looked up at the ornate crown molding in this expensive house. Of course they had a garage.…
“Oh. Okay.” He headed in the opposite direction.
With a slight hesitation, he opened the door that he assumed was the garage only to find himself in the pantry.
Crap.
“Um … grabbing some Pop-Tarts for the road,” Nick said, covering his mistake. Still, they both stared at him as if he’d escaped Arkham Asylum. Offering them a fake smile, he grabbed the pastries, crossed himself, and hoped he got the next door correct.
Nope. Bathroom.
With a pain-filled groan at his rampant stupidity, Nick pretended to use it before he tried again. At least there were only two more doors to go.
Fifty-fifty chance.
Thankfully, third time was the charm. He let out a relieved breath as he stepped down and saw a red Jeep, black SUV, and silver Jaguar in the three-car garage. Man, that was so wrong. That Jag was the same car Acheron had given him when he’d brought Nick’s license over to their condo.
I want the life back where I get to drive that without Bubba flipping out on me.
Then again …
This was a normal life. Really normal, like other people’s lives. No one was trying to kill him, or eat him. He didn’t have a principal who thought he was the biggest loser on the planet. Half the football team wasn’t turning into zombies or werewolves. There was no psycho-demon coach threatening him if he didn’t help kill his fellow teammates. Bubba and Mark weren’t cattle-prod-wielding lunatics.
You know, this has possibilities. It might not be bad to be normal for a while. Weird and poor hadn’t worked out that well for him. Rich and well dressed might be another story.
Feeling better about it all, Nick decided he’d stop complaining about everything and just try this life on for a while. It might suit him.
After climbing into his Jeep, he made his way to school, where no one stared at him as if he’d just run over their dog. In fact, it was disturbing how little attention he garnered. No one seemed to care at all that he was here.
I could get used to this.
“Hey, Nick.”
It took him a second to realize it was Caleb … Fingerman, not Malphas, who was walking up to him in the hallway.
“Hi, Caleb.”
“Feeling any better?”
He scowled at Caleb’s question. “Pardon?”
“I called to check on you, but your dad said you didn’t feel well. That you went to bed as soon as you got home, without saying a word to anyone.”
Yes, he had. After stumbling through the mansion and finding his room, he’d been hoping it was all a bad dream and that he’d wake up at home.
Bust on that thought.
“Yeah. I think it was just a bug.” Nick headed for his locker. As he tried to open it, the larger and snottier Madaug grabbed him and snatched him back.
“What are you doing, buttmunch? You trying to put a love letter in my locker or something?”
Nick shrugged his hold off. “I was going to my locker.”
Madaug shoved him across the hall. “Yours is over there, doof. How many paint chips did you eat for breakfast?”
Scowling, Nick met Caleb’s concerned gaze.
“Are you sure you’re okay?”
Nick returned his backpack to his shoulder. “Can you keep a secret?”
“Always.”
“I think I have amnesia.”
Caleb’s eyes widened. “From what?”
“Being slammed into lockers by dung-sniffing Neanderthals.” Nick passed an evil glare at Madaug as he walked past them. “I can’t seem to remember anything. Like, where’s my first class?”
“Did you tell your parents?”
Nick shook his head. “You know how my mom is. I don’t want to go to the Mayo Clinic for a hangnail. I feel fine. I just can’t remember anything.”
“That’s not fine, Nick. That’s a big problem.”
Yes, it was. But not for the reasons Caleb was thinking. “Please don’t tell anyone, Caleb.”
“All right. I’ll help, but if it doesn’t get better, you really need to have it checked out.”
“I will.”
Caleb showed him to his locker and then opened it after Nick couldn’t. “The combo is your dad’s jersey number, your mom’s birth year, and the year your dad’s team won the Super Bowl.”
He arched a brow at Caleb’s dissertation. “How do you know that?”
Caleb shrugged. “We’ve been best friends since birth. There’s nothing about you I don’t know.”
Yeah, right. He didn’t know that Nick didn’t belong here, and that in another life Caleb was a badass demigod demonspawn, and Nick was his half-breed demonkyn charge who was wanted by most anything not human-born.
Don’t think about it.…
Grabbing his chem book, Nick stood up, shut his locker, then clicked his heels together three times.
Caleb gave him a strange look. “What are you doing?”
Nick sighed heavily. “Seeing if what worked for Dorothy and witches worked for demonspawn, too.”
He scowled. “Dorothy? Demonspawn? What in the name of sanity are you talking about?”
“Nothing.” Nick scanned the hall as he tucked his book into his backpack. “So where’s Kody?”
“Kody who?”
“Kennedy. My girlfriend … sort of.” At least she was whenever she wasn’t trying to kill or confuse him.
“Did you forget that, too? Casey’s your girlfriend.”
So it’d seemed at the prom, but given Casey’s bipolar affaires de couer, Nick wasn’t eager to renew their “friendship.” Honestly, he wanted to stay away from her for a while.
Just to be safe.
“Yeah, but where’s Kody?”
Caleb continued to stare at him as if he’d grown another head. “Where does she go to school?”
Was he serious? “Here. With us.”
He shook his head. “We don’t have a Kody in this school, Nick.”
That sick, awful feeling returned to his stomach. No Kody? How was that possible? If she existed in his realm, wouldn’t she have to be here, too?
And if she was gone from here was that a good thing, or a really bad one?
“Hey, guys! Guess what I did?”
Nick cringed at the new incarnation of Acheron as he joined them. He still couldn’t get used to or accept this person as his friend. His Ash was not normal in any sense of the word. He was the Goth king, Acheron, towering over Nick and the rest of the world with his massive seven feet of augmented height. An eleven-thousand-year-old warrior, Acheron was the epitome of lethal, in-your-face badass.