Invision (2 page)

“Until you have a child…” Yeah, Caleb just had to toss that reminder into the mix.

“I have a brother. Can't I give this to him and let him be the Malachai instead of me?”

Caleb shook his head. “That ship left the harbor when you took the Malachai sword and picked your Å¡arras for your army. You are the full Malachai now, Nick. There's no undoing it. Not until you have a son who kills you for your powers, and he designates his own generals.”

Pressing the heels of his hands to his eyes, Nick cursed them all. “Why didn't you stop me from taking that stupid sword from Livia?”

Caleb stood up. “Like you would have listened.”

“I might.”

Kody shook her head. “No, you wouldn't have. You never do.”

They were right. He just didn't want to hear it. “If we erase everything, where does that leave me?”

“With a migraine,” Aeron said under his breath.

Before Caleb could answer, the statue beside Kody opened its eyes and turned its head to stare at Nick.

“I knew it!”

They all ignored his Tourette's as Kody jumped away from the statue to eye it warily.

“Malachai.” It smiled eerily before it stood and headed for Nick.

Both Aeron and Caleb cut its path off.

The statue tsked at them. “Still hiding behind your friends? Shame you don't have the same loyalty to them.”

Rising to his feet, Nick scowled. “Excuse me? I emphatically disagree. I protect my friends. Always.”

“You can disagree all you want. But I know the truth and so do they.” The statue held its hand out toward Nick and opened its palm. A ball of light hovered there, showing him images of another ally they'd thought had died in their last battle against the demons that had been trying to kill Caleb in his own home. “Zavid isn't dead, Malachai. He's only abandoned by you. Have you the nerve to come get him? Or will you stay and protect the princess?” It glanced meaningfully at Kody before it turned back to sneer at Nick. “After all, he who leaves Rome, loses Rome.”

And with those words spoken, the ball vanished and the statue returned to being immobile again.

Nick's jaw went slack. “Zavid's not dead?”

“It's a trap.” Caleb turned to face Nick. “Don't listen.”

“You knew?”

Caleb shook his head. “It's not as simple as you think. Noir used his body to attack you. No one survives that kind of possession. Not even an Aamon. While his soul might be with Noir now, his body isn't.”

In that moment, Nick's Malachai powers kicked in and fed him the information he needed. The aether around him began to whisper with information and facts. He saw Zavid in the Nether Realm, being tormented in a pit where Noir threw his enemies.

Wincing, he couldn't believe that no one had told him about this. “I have the powers to bring him back and restore him?”

“Again, not that simple.”

Nick stared aghast at Caleb. “How is it not that simple?”

“You haven't learned those powers. Yes, you sort of … kind of…” Did Caleb always have to use that mocking tone? “Learned
some
necromancy—”

“A little bit,” Kody added for emphasis.

“But you're not at the level where you can actually command those powers with any degree of skill.”

“Yeah, boyo, you could bring him back as a goat.”

“Already did that to Madaug,” Nick mumbled, then louder, “but I got him better and made him human again.”

“Sort of.”

Nick rolled his eyes at Caleb's sarcastic tone. Was it too much to ask for his friends to have Alzheimer's? They were old enough to be senile and then some.

But no …

Leave it to him to be surrounded by demons with perfect recall.

“You're not being helpful.” Nick growled under his breath. “I can't leave Zavid in Azmodea.” That was a hell realm of unimaginable horrors. He'd only been to it once, and briefly, but it'd been long enough to leave a crappy impression.

Cocking his brow, Caleb crossed his arms over his chest. “Thought you were out of the fight? What happened to drowning your woes with beignets?”

Nick glanced at Kody then Aeron before he met Caleb's gaze. “That was before I found out one of our own was being held by He-Who-Wants-Me-Chained-to-his-Bony-Throne. I don't leave my friends behind to suffer in my stead. Especially not Zavid. Not after he saved my life and not after everything he's been through. I made him a promise and I intend to keep it.”

With those words spoken, he headed toward home to make plans.

Kody watched as Nick lowered his head and went into that sexy predator's lope that he always fell into whenever he had a mission to protect someone he loved, or was heading to fight for someone else. He had no idea that he even did it, nor did he know just how incredibly adorable he was when he did so. That stubborn Cajun blood and his ever-faithful heart were why she couldn't bring herself to complete her mission to assassinate him. Why she loved him even though he would one day kill every member of her family.

Kill her.

It was so hard to reconcile this decent young man with the beast she knew she'd one day face in battle. How could anyone change so much?

She cut her gaze to Caleb. “What did you see in the Eye? What changes him?”

“The ruthless bitch who ultimately betrays us all. Death.”

A single tear slid past her tight control. Caleb was right. Death changed everyone. Each time she'd buried a member of her family, it had left a savage hole in her heart. One that never fully healed.

Nick had so little family to begin with, and as a Malachai, his natural state was that of hatred and cruelty. His mother and her unwavering love were the only things that kept him from becoming the same monster his father had been.

The monster he was destined to become.

“So Cherise is definitely a pith?” she asked Caleb. Pith points were those events that were chiseled solid in everyone's life. Predestined intersections, such as birth and death, that were unstoppable moments nothing could alter. What happened in between to bring them into being were transitory and subject to free will. Humans and other creatures could move things around the pith points and make a thousand changes—those arbitrary events were never predetermined.

But a pith …

It was set in firmly in the
Divine Book of Fate.
Nothing and no one could change that.

Caleb shook his head. “No. She's not a pith. Her death isn't necessarily what sends him over.”

“So we can save her?”

He nodded. “At the cost of
your
future. Everything's a trade-off.”

Aeron flinched. “All magick comes with a price.”

“And the balance must be maintained.” Caleb sighed before he returned to speaking to Kody. “You and his mom were both born of the primal source to balance the Malachai. Cherise in the past and you in the future—both of you his possible anchors. The two of you should have never met.”

But the Arelim had cheated and altered the rules. Now the law of the universe was attempting to right itself and correct their audacity for daring to tamper with fate and natural order.

Of all beings, as the Keepers of Cosmic Order they should have known better. Unfortunately, desperate people moved in desperate ways and did desperate things.

“And what of the prophecy? Can we save him?”

Caleb rubbed nervously at his neck. “Maybe. But it's not so simple. It requires a supreme sacrifice. One of utter love to reach him at his darkest hour … even then, there aren't any guarantees.”

Kody despised those last four words.

Every bit as frustrated as she was, Caleb raked his hand through his hair. “We wanted Nick motivated … but not
this
motivated.” He dropped his hand. “He goes into Azmodea and we're screwed.”

She couldn't agree more. However, they had one not so small problem. “We can't stop him. His powers are too strong now.”

“Believe me, I know. I'm lucky I got him tackled just then. Worse? I can't go in there with him. Neither can Xev. Our father would chain us down beside your uncle and hand-feed us to Noir's demons if he saw us protecting the Malachai.” He looked at Aeron.

“Don't be cutting them eyes at me, Malphas. Not sure if I can or not. Might be able to swing an invite from Thorn. But that'll only get me so far into that realm. Same for Dagon. You know how it goes when you're born of other pantheons. They tend not to let us come a'playing in their backyards.”

Caleb let out a fierce groan. “Have I said today how much I hate your boyfriend, Kody?”

“Only a few dozen times since lunch.”

“Good. Don't want you to forget it.” Growling, he headed toward the street.

“Where are you going?”

“To get my butt kicked again. You should come watch. You might actually enjoy it. I know I won't.”

How she wished that was a joke. Unfortunately, before this was through, they were all likely to get their butts handed to them.

And their heads, too.

 

CHAPTER 1

Nick stood in the center of his bedroom, staring at the symbols on his wall. They were ancient protection sigils that Caleb and his aunt Menyara had placed there to keep out anything that could harm either him or his mother. The first time he'd noticed them as a small child, Menyara had told him they were special Monster Away sprays that she'd made for him. It'd made him feel extra-loved and protected.

Little had he known then that they weren't just for protection. Those scrolled emblems had also been there to restrict his powers and bind them so that he couldn't accidentally uncover his birthright.

As a result, he really didn't understand a lot about who and what he was.

Even now.

But it was time he learned. He was through guessing and flying by the seat of his pants. If he was to save Zavid and not get enslaved by the oldest, most primal evil, he needed to really comprehend what he was capable of pulling off.

And there was one person he knew who could answer this.

“Xevikan?”

Mr. Fuzzy Boots rose up from the sofa to arch his back and yawn.

Nick snorted at Xev's alternate feline form. “I need you as a human, dude. Shed the cat skin for a while.”

He flashed himself into his extremely tall human body. Although Nick couldn't blame him for wanting to spend most of his time in the lazy house cat incarnation. He wouldn't mind spending his days snoozing, either.

Not to mention, the old powers had done a number on Xev when they'd cursed him to this state. Instead of being the boy-band member he'd been born, his perfect good looks were now off-putting, and there was nothing they could do to change them. Heaven knew they'd tried enough L'Oréal products to convert the entire North American
and
European Goth communities to normal hair colors.

Instead of his natural black, Xev's hair was an unnatural shade of red on one side and a vibrant, fake yellow on the other. If that wasn't bad enough, his eyebrows were a light, electric blue that clashed with his rusty-greenish-blue hazel eyes.

At least he could fake being emo in this time period, but still …

It had to suck to have your own family be so cruel as to condemn you to such a fate.

Crossing his arms over his chest, Xev scowled at Nick. “What's trying to eat you now?”

Nick rolled his eyes and ignored the question. “Did you know Zavid was still alive?”

He made a peculiar noise. “
Alive
is an interesting term when one attempts to apply it to a soul-eating hellhound who was possessed by the source of all evil. But to be honest, I hadn't thought about it, one way or another.”

“Would you mind applying your skills to it and telling me what you think?”

Xev nodded slowly. “Yes. Given that he most likely couldn't be killed per se, he probably does exist in a noncorporeal state in Azmodea.”

“Can I have the English translation of that?”

Xev rubbed at the corner of his eye with his middle finger in a deliberate manner before he answered. “Remember when you were divided? Your soul not in your body?”

Like that wasn't seared into his brain? Especially given the number of things that had tried to eat him and it was how the two of them had bonded. “Not something one forgets easily.”

“Well, there you go.”

“Um, you lost me, Sparky.” Nick scowled at something that confused him. If the soul was divided from the body … “Then he's dead.”

“Define
dead
.”

He glared at Xev as he continued to play vague in a way that would make the ancient Atlantean god Acheron proud. “Would you stop with the head games and please answer the question?”

“I'm trying. It's not that simple.”

“You and Caleb … what is it with the two of you? Did you take asshole pills this morning? Gah, you
are
brothers. I don't know why you can't get along. You're just alike.”

Xev snorted. “You think we're bad? You should meet our father sometime. Your great-great-grandfather is a total piece of work. But to answer your question, Nick. Zavid would need to be reborn here. Yes, you
could
do that. The Malachai theoretically has power. But that kind of thing will cost you. It's not free, and the universal powers frown upon it. It's like altering time. Just because you can, doesn't mean you should. The hardest part of life is knowing when to walk away and let fate run its course. Even though it's a kick in the stones to let it do it.”

“And if that was you trapped there? Would you still be advocating a retreat?”

“It was me trapped there, for countless centuries. And yes, it sucked.” He reached over his shoulder to rub at his back. “You want to know why I choose to stay in my cat form most of the time?”