Yet this place contained nothing close to that. This was much more organic and dark and red. Contemporary. More akin to a kurazukuri home. So much so, he half expected a Pokemon or Team Rocket to come flying out at any moment and run him over. Or some unexpected Yakuza attack.
Yeah … it definitely had a Japanese feel to it. Right down to the bright, hand-painted rice wallpaper and austere, futon furnishings. There was even an ornate orange and green kimono hung on the wall to his left, and an antique yoroi hitsu beside it.
Scowling in confusion, he turned toward the Charonte demon. “Um … Sim? Where exactly are we? Did you mean to bring me here?”
’Cause this was definitely not Kansas and he was feeling about as lost as Toto wandering off the Yellow Brick Road. He just hoped they weren’t about to encounter some weird, ticked off wicked witch, or a herd of screeching flying monkeys dressed like funky blue bellhops.
Better yet, he hoped no one dropped a house on top of him. ’Cause that was the last thing he needed right about now. And it would definitely ruin his already screwed up day.
Although, Simi did have on black and white striped leggings …
Maybe she had more to fear here than he did.
Simi adjusted the strap on her coffin-shaped purse. “Well, the Simi knows what you said you wanted to go and visits with them nasty Greek god people who are all so irritating, but then I gots to thinking what you really wanted to ask about and so I thoughts—”
“Simi? What are you doing here?” The deep, thunderous voice radiated through the room with so much preternatural energy that it almost tripped Nick’s Malachai blood against his will. Indeed, it took everything he had to stop his wings from unfurling and exposing him in front of the stranger. Something that would be about as embarrassing as his teachers calling him to the board during inconvenient moments at school when he’d been ogling Kody instead of his chem or lit book.
The fact that his Malachai blood detected that ancient, invincible power and wanted to react to it, set the last of Nick’s nerves on edge.
Which meant this guy was old.
More than that, he’d have to be some kind of strong warrior demon for Nick’s body to have reacted like this.
The stranger could probably kick his butt without effort.
Forget a house falling on him—that might actually be a far more humane death, than this dude setting claws or fangs to him.
And there was no doubt that this beast could take him in a fight and make it seriously hurt. Standing eye-to-eye with him—which was no, pardon the pun, small feat, he was like a super ripped ninja with the kind of toned muscles that Kyrian, Caleb and Acheron sported. Complete with his long black hair tied back in a sleek, neat pony-tail.
And by the stern expression on that face nothing got past those sharp, intelligent almond-shaped eyes that seemed to see through him. Like the Dark-Hunter Acheron, this stranger appeared young, yet the air between them sizzled with enough arcane power that it said this man had been around a whole lot longer.
Centuries upon centuries.
Upon centuries.
He might even be older than Acheron. Maybe even closer to Caleb’s or Dagon’s prehistoric age.
And that was disconcerting. Especially as the Malachai powers inside Nick saw him not in the black t-shirt and jeans he currently wore, but in keikō armor wielding a naginata in the midst of battle against a group of dramonk demons.
His skill in that fight was unnerving, but not nearly as much as the next image that quickly flashed through his mind.
This was one of a crap-your-pants-sideways level of terror. No longer dressed in armor, he wore the guise of a zeitjäger. The creepy, creepy ravenesque demons who were in charge of monitoring time and anyone who would abuse it.
More than that, Nick saw him pulling off the bloodied plague doctor mask they all wore to expose his eyes with an all black sclera.
Yeah, that’s just what I needed today …
To have another run-in with those beasts. The one he’d had awhile back had been enough for his life. Nick really didn’t want another.
Ever.
Simi, however, appeared immune as always to the scary thing in front of them. In fact, she ran over and hugged him!
’Cause yeah, that was a normal thing for someone to do …
In nightmares only.
“Akri-Tashi! I gots someone for you to meet!”
Nick cringed at the thought. Honestly? He’d rather meet his mom three hours after curfew, reeking of alcohol and wearing her best shoes.
On a Sunday night.
After missing Mass.
A slow smile spread across the man’s face as he returned Simi’s exuberant hug. Neither friendly nor sinister, that smile managed to hover somewhere between those two things. “Nick, good to see you, little buddy. Wasn’t expecting the Malachai to come waltzing into my house today.”
Oh yeah, that wasn’t the least bit unnerving.
Nick let out a sarcastic laugh. “Dude, do I know you?”
His smile turned a bit warmer, which was even scarier somehow. “Takeshi. We’ve met in your future. Many times.”
O-kay … Nick was even more uncomfortable. “That supposed to make sense to me?”
Simi laughed. “You wanted to travel through time … Takeshi do it lots and lots. Sometimes he lives backwards even. Though he not supposed to,” she whispered. “So we not tell people about that … shhh.”
Ah, that explained it.
Sort of.
Yeah … no. Nick was completely lost and confused.
Cocking his head, Takeshi scowled. “So what have you screwed up now, kid?”
Nick pressed his hands to his temples as his head began to ache from trying to keep up and understand what was going on. “Okay, I’m really on the losing end here. ’Cause I’m not sure what you’re asking. Or even where I am, or what’s going on.”
Screwing up for him was like an Olympic sport. He did it so much and so spectacularly that he didn’t even think about it.
Sometimes, like now, he wasn’t even aware that he’d done it. At least not until Kody or his mom stopped talking to him for a day or two, and “stink-eyed” him every time he got near them. And left him every bit as confounded as Takeshi did on what Nick could have done to piss off everybody.
With a real laugh, Takeshi shook his head. “I know you, boy. While I don’t live my life in a straight line, you do. And we shouldn’t be meeting like this. At least not now. So for you to be here means you’ve screwed something up. What have you done?”
“You see what I was talking about, babe?”
Nick choked at the last voice he’d expected to hear. But it at least answered the most probing question that had been eluding him for weeks now—where one of his generals and protectors had vanished off to. “Nashira? What are you doing here?”
For that matter, how had she gotten to this dimension?
Why was he even surprised at this point?
His yōkai grimoire being literally manifested in front of them. With long white-blond hair that belied her own Japanese heritage, Nashira had vivid purple eyes that were set in a beautiful, elvish face— complete with pointed ears that peeked out from her snow-white hair. Graceful and lithe, she moved like the wind and usually spoke in riddles that gave Nick more questions than answers.
And a resounding migraine he was sure was a brain tumor the size of a bowling ball.
At least that had been true in the past. Today, however, she answered like a “normal” human and not some pestilence demon sent to make him crazy.
“I came to see my husband.”
When she touched Takeshi on the shoulder and his harsh gaze softened, Nick’s jaw fell south without any effort on his part. “Pardon?”
Takeshi took her hand into his and kissed her knuckles. Then he pressed her hand to his cheek and held it there as if it were some sacred object. “It’s true. And I’m told that I owe her presence here to you. For that alone, Malachai, I’m willing to give you a great deal of slack and latitude.”
Nick turned his gaping stare toward Simi. “Did you know about this?”
“That Akri-Tashi married? Well, yeah. Don’t everybody?”
Given that Nick didn’t know Takeshi at all, no. But he knew better than to refute Simi as the demon didn’t like that. So, instead, he turned back to them and tried not to gape.