Kody hesitated. “That’s not Nick! You know it’s not.”
“There’s only one Malachai.”
“And I know my husband. He would never attack us. It’s not in him.”
Tabitha sneered at her. “Then where is he? Huh? He was supposed to meet us here. Him and Caleb.”
“Nick wouldn’t do this.”
“Ambrose would.” Tabitha wiped the blood from her cheek. “We lost him to the beast.”
Bethany cupped her daughter’s cheek before she kissed her and then her grandbaby. “Stand strong. Be safe.” She nudged her toward a tall, blond man who was the very image of Acheron. And by that, Nick knew he must be Kody’s brother. “You two take care of each other. Protect each other’s back and stay safe, whatever it takes. Love you!”
A tear slid down the man’s face. “Love you, Mom. Dad would be proud, if he were here.”
She choked on a sob as she gave her son and daughter a tumultuous smile. “Yes, he would. Now go! I’ll hold a shield around you as long as I can.”
Kyrian pulled his daughter away from the children she was trying to comfort and protect. “Marissa, go with them.”
“No! I won’t leave you to this!”
Kyrian’s wife, Amanda, joined them so that she could force her daughter to obey. “Yes. No argument. I’m not about to watch you die!”
Marissa began to cry over her parents’ orders before she nodded. She hugged Kyrian, then Amanda and Tabitha. Without a word, she followed Kody to the back door. She paused to look back at them and the longing ache in her eyes made Nick choke on his own sob.
And the moment she left the knave, the front door broke open, spilling demons into the church.
Nick saw himself leading the demons.
Until Caleb, in his own demon form, came flying in for the attack.
The moment Caleb was there, Ambrose caught him by the throat. And in that instant, Nick realized something. Something he’d missed in his previous nightmares and visions.
Caleb met his gaze and froze. “Who are you?”
In all the visions he’d had before, Nick had taken that to mean that his friend hadn’t recognized the Malachai demon that had swallowed Nick whole. That he’d been baffled by Nick’s actions that day.
This time … this time, Nick saw it for what it really was.
Too late, Caleb realized that he wasn’t Ambrose.
Like Kody, he saw the truth of the beast. That this Malacahi was an imposter, and that was what had caused the Malachai to kill him. Not for the fact that Caleb had failed to follow his orders, or kill Kyrian and the others.
Caleb had known the truth.
There was a second Malachai masquerading as Ambrose.
“Who are you?” he breathed, desperate to have an answer as to who the Cyprian Malachai really was. But at least he had the comfort of knowing that he, Nick, wasn’t the beast who’d killed everyone he loved.
He was only the poor fool framed for it all.
“Nick?”
He heard Kyrian’s voice off in the distance.
At first he thought it was the wind. Until he realized his boss was dragging him from his vision and back to where they’d been in the busy police station.
Blinking, Nick glanced around them. “Um, yeah, sorry. I just remembered an assignment I didn’t finish. I’m going to be in all kinds of trouble at school tomorrow if I don’t get it done.”
With that, he bolted for the door, needing to find out more about what was going on.
Caleb was still MIA and that wasn’t like his demon protector. He didn’t even let Nick go to the bathroom alone. That meant, something bad was up for Caleb to be missing this long.
More fear went through him as he struggled to stay in the present. But his powers kept trying to drag him away to both the past and the future.
At the same time.
He felt like a boat that’d lost all moorings. All sense of time and place.
He couldn’t even begin to ground himself.
I need Kody.
Just as he was sure he’d lost his mind completely, he heard something calling to him.
Not a person, though. He wasn’t sure what it was.
This is so peculiar.
How could he stop it and ground himself so that he didn’t keep floundering?
“I will always be here for you.”
On the steps, outside the station, Nick froze at the voice. The spinning stopped so that he could see the street and the traffic. He was still in New Orleans. In his right time period. This was where he was supposed to be.
Cocking his head, he reached out with his powers. His mom, Bubba, Acheron and Kyrian were still in the station. Talking about him, and how strange he’d been acting.
They weren’t the ones who’d spoken, though. That wasn’t what he’d heard. The voice had been familiar, yet not theirs.
He struggled to place it and couldn’t.
“What is wrong with me?”
With no clue, he pulled his phone out and dialed Caleb.
He didn’t answer.
Completely worried, he tried Kody.
Like Caleb, she ignored his call, too. He reached out with his powers.
They, too, failed him.
Yeah, this was all kinds of wrong. A chill went down his sprine.
Nick attempted to teleport and couldn’t. His powers were weakened again. The other Malachai was draining him faster than he’d ever dreamed possible. No wonder his father had stayed in prison after his birth.
He totally understood Adarian’s demented reasoning now. It was probably the only way his father had been able to retain any power at all. In prison, Adarian could suck the evil straight out of the other inmates so that he’d be able to fight against the never-ending stream of enemies out to end or enslave him.
That was why he’d been so aggressive whenever Nick’s mother had brought him in to visit. Why he’d wanted to see Cherise alone.
Why his father had gone insane the only time they’d released him from jail during Nick’s childhood. Unable to stay away from his mother, his father had shown up at their door and attempted to live with them.
That had been a giant disaster.
Even now, Nick was scarred by it. Adarian had glared at him with so much hatred it’d left him forever suspicious of any stranger. The only people Nick trusted innately were his mother and Menyara.
Everyone else had to prove themselves.
Repeatedly.
Heck, sometimes even they did.
A small part of him was still suspicious of Kody and Caleb. Even Kyrian. He couldn’t help it. It was as innate as breathing.
And all from that one summer of his father stalking him like a spider in the dark. Of Nick waking up to find his father standing over him, Adarian’s breathing ragged and his hands held out as if he were one step away from strangling him. Nick had told his mother then that he’d seen his father’s eyes glowing red.
“Nicky! Boo! You’re imagining things. It’s all them games you play with your friends and the movies you watch. What have I told you about that? Stop sneaking up to see them! You’re too bright to believe in such nonsense.”
It wasn’t that. More, it came from the fact that his father whispered, “I hate you,” under his breath anytime Nick ventured too close. That his father had hated him for making him weak and for draining his powers.
Then the insanity had come. His father had gone on a killing spree, claiming there were demons after him.
Saddest part?
Adarian wasn’t lying or delusional. Those were real demons who’d been after his father, trying to end him. But normal humans didn’t believe in such things.
And the nondelusional part had been proven when a psychologist had deemed him sane enough to stand trial and be sentenced for consecutive life sentences for those murders. Because while humans refused to believe in the kinds of demons Nick fought, they did believe in the kind of demon they assumed his father had been for slaughtering “humans”.
Yeah, it was a messed up world.
Even then, Nick’s mom had shown compassion for the monster who’d been unleashed on an unsuspecting world, and hadn’t hated him over it. But, that was her nature. She was born from the truest light. A creature of such innocence that she couldn’t see the uglier side of humanity, no matter what was shown or unleashed on her.