Invision (9 page)

His breathing labored, he retracted his claws and narrowed his gaze on Kody. “You know the cosmic laws. He's my master. I shouldn't have been able to harm him, at all. The only way for me to do that…” He jerked his chin toward the blood on Nick's hand. “Something's draining the Malachai out of him.”

“How's that possible?” Kody breathed.

“
I
don't know. I've never heard of it before.”

The color faded from Kody's cheeks. “Caleb … if anyone finds out about this…”

“Believe me, Nyria, I know.… He's dead.”

 

CHAPTER 4

Aeron pressed the heel of his hand to his eye as he tried to keep his skull from splitting apart. Though to be honest, he wouldn't mind it breaking open so long as it stopped aching like this.
Please, anything, just stop hurting …

He blinked open his other eye to see if he could figure out where in the blessed bog he might be, 'cause he had a bad feeling he wasn't at home in Caleb's house.

By the crappy, moldy, pungent, stale stench of the place, it wasn't St. Richard's, unless he'd somehow gotten locked in the bottom of the boys' dirty laundry chute.

And no one had bothered to do laundry in a few dozen decades.

Maybe longer.

“Gah, I'll never complain about the Daeve's smell again.” To be honest, he'd rather bury his nose in the smoking pits of Caleb's hairy arms after his football practice in August than inhale this wretched stench. It smelled worse than the Dagda's boots after he'd been chasing the Mórrígan around the bend.

The moment he sat up, he froze. Two inches from his nose was the ugliest dog he'd ever seen. It made the Cŵn Annwn look like a swan. All it needed was to have red ears and be howling and he'd know his death was imminent. “Here now, puppy. I'm sure I can find a nice slipper for you to chew on, eh?”

If you hand me a shoe, I'll shove it up where the sun don't shine, Irishman.

Dropping his hand, Aeron cracked a grin at the snide tone. “Not Irish, if you want to be technical. And who are you, Scooby?”

Not Scooby …

“Hellhound?”

Mostly … if you want to be technical.

“Snotty little bastard, aren't you?”

You stay here any length of time and you will be, too.

“And here would be . .?” Aeron let his voice trail off meaningfully.

Azmodea.

Of course it was. Aeron groaned out loud. “I'm assuming we're on the bad side of the fence?”

Is there a good side?

“Thorn's.”

I know nothing of a Thorn.

“And that answers that.” Aeron glanced around at the dank, iridescent-black walls of his makeshift prison. They bled like an oozing oil pit. At least he wasn't bound. Not that it would have done them any good. Hard to pin a púca with shackles, and while he was still a bit chafed at his family for what they'd done to him with their cursing, there was something to be said for it.

Sitting back, he looked up at the eerie blue lights that radiated above their heads. They pulsed like a living creature.

He grimaced at the sight of what he was pretty sure were the remains of a poor beast who'd had a much worse day than his. Thank the gods his innards didn't glow after death. He'd hate to have his guts used in such a manner.

“You didn't happen to see what brought me here, did you, boyo?”

Taahiki demons.

Well, that explained the stench. They were the polecats of the demon world. It'd be weeks before he'd get
that
off his skin. “Now, I'm going to ask a ridiculously rhetorical question.”

No, there's no way out of here.

“You could have at least given me the satisfaction of asking it. But since you ruined that, I have another. Me master has misplaced his own hellhound. Any chance you might be familiar with him? He's named Zavid.”

You serve the Malachai?

Aeron hesitated in his answer. One thing he'd learned aeons ago—you volunteer no facts until you knew what side of the matter your opponent was aligned to, and he knew nothing of this new “friend.”

“I don't
serve
anyone.”

“Yet you're the one who said it was your master's hound.” A low, insidious moan echoed around them from no known source.

The black wolf crouched low and began growling at the wall to Aeron's left.

“What's that?”

Noir's servants. If you are friend or servant to the Malachai, they're coming to make you regret it.

“And what are you?”

I'm no friend of Noir's or Azura's. But if you can show me this Thorn, I will be the best friend you've ever made.

Rising to his feet, Aeron stepped away as every warning in his body went off simultaneously. This was a little too easy. “And why would I be wanting to take you anywhere when you're the one who'd be knowing the way when I don't? Not like I've got a set of keys to the kingdom. You could have left here at any time. Why did you wait on me when you didn't know I was coming…? Or did you?”

A flash of light blinded him an instant before the wolf became a tall, thin, male demon. “You're just all kinds of smart, aren't you? Pity that…”

*   *   *

“You know that won't break him, right?”

Noir turned a ball-shriveling glare toward Grim that would have sent anyone else in this dismal realm scurrying for a hole to vanish into. Almost seven feet in height, the ancient primal god held an insidious beauty that only the source of all evil could possess.

His black hair and eyes were as soulless as his actions. And there was a wicked light that flickered in the depths of those cold eyes that seemed to match his dark burgundy demonic armor. He tossed his bloodred cape back over his shoulder. “Are you trying to piss me off?”

“No, but that would be a sweet bonus.”

Noir actually laughed. Something that caused all the demons around them to run away like rodents fleeing a pending explosion—which was most likely what they thought that unnatural sound portended. The ancient god reached out and grabbed Grim's pale hair.

His mouth curled into the semblance of a cruel, twisted smile before he jerked Grim against his chest and gave him a bone-shattering embrace. “I've missed you, boy.” He placed a kiss on the top of Grim's head, then released him. Quicker than Grim could blink, he backhanded him so hard that Grim saw stars from it. “But if you back talk me again, I'll rip out your entrails and throw them to the slug demons to eat.”

Wiping the blood from his nose and mouth, Grim forced himself not to show how much that blow had staggered him. Or the fact that he still wasn't seeing straight from it as his face continued to throb and ache to distraction.

Holy crap, for an old fart whose strength had waned, Noir could pack a wallop.

He passed an angry pain-filled glare to Laguerre who held absolutely no sympathy for him in her cold, dark eyes.

But then, she
was
Noir's daughter.

He grimaced at the blood on his hand. He'd forgotten just how much he hated being around Azura and Noir. Now being that he was virtually trapped with them and dependent on them …

If he ever laid hands on that sniveling Malachai, Gautier would know pain unimaginable.

When people talked about having bad in-laws, they had
no
idea what true misery meant. They should have to spend a weekend with
his
.

These two ancient beings were a large part of why he'd left Laguerre centuries ago. As much as he'd once loved her, and as much fun as they'd had in war together, it wasn't worth tolerating her demented, psychotic parents and their volatile tantrums.

Not even for a dinner date.

And he'd forgotten just how much Laguerre favored her father. But now that they stood side by side, the resemblance was uncanny. Same coal-black eyes that held no feeling or regard for anyone else. Same patrician features, smug expressions, and dark hair. Only while Noir's was short, Laguerre's fell to her waist in spiraling curls.

Just like her father, she'd sprang from her mother's womb, sword in her hand, ready to kill any- and everyone who happened into her path. No wonder the ancient humans had once deemed her the Fire Bitch of the Gods. Herit-Anat, Anat the Terror, et cetera. Back then, she'd gone by many names and even more epitaphs.

Ancient humans had left her untold offerings in their temples, hoping to buy her favor so that she'd leave them alone.

As if …

Instead, the two of them had led untold wars and conquests throughout the human lands. Everywhere they went, slaughter followed. For centuries, they'd been an invincible team. Laguerre as the goddess of war, and he as the god of death. Their army of demons and damned had torn up the entire earth.

How Grim missed those days of freedom, and bloody fun.

Now …

Grim pressed his thumb against the tooth Noir's blow had loosened. He was trapped here. Useless and bored.

Worse, he was irrelevant. He, who had once so terrified humanity to the point they couldn't think his name without shaking in terror and dying of fright, was now reduced down in this modern age to a cartoon character who made appearances in video games and on birthday greeting cards. They'd turned him into a chibi!

The indignities never stopped.

Laguerre sighed. “The Malachai still has five of his Å¡arras by his side. Removing one won't make much difference.”

Noir slid an intolerant grimace toward his daughter. “Patience, Anat. Have you learned nothing out in the human world?”

“Only how much I loathe the mortal vermin and wish to see them crushed beneath my hooves again.”

Suddenly, Noir leaned his head back and took a deep breath as if he were in the throes of ultimate pleasure.

After a few uncomfortable minutes, he opened his eyes and smiled at them. “Ah … see? That's why I wanted his Å¡arras here. They hold a part of the Malachai's powers. As such, I can feed from them and take back some of his strength. It's why all of you were kept from me and banned from here while you served him. Now bring me the rest of his little friends. Once we have him fully weakened and me fed, we shall be able to destroy him. And I'll be able to leave here, not as a ghost in a body I invaded through possession, but as myself. Then we will rain down our will upon this world again and show them what they've missed.”

*   *   *

“Hey, Ma,” Nick said as soon as he heard his mother's thick Cajun drawl when she answered the phone. “I'm sorry to bug you at work, but I'm really sick. I need to go home. Is that okay?”

“Baby Boo! You sound so terrible and sad! Oh, honey. It's right in the middle of the lunch crowd. I can't leave. Let me call Michael and I'll send him right over to pick you up, okay?”

“'Kay. I'm handing you to the school nurse to tell her. Love you, Ma.”

“You, too, baby. Please be okay. You rest and I'll be home as soon as I can to check on you. Call if you need me and I will come running. I'll quit if I have to.”

Nick snorted at his mom's offer. She loved her job as a waitress at Sanctuary. Although, if she ever learned her boss was a shape-shifting were-bear, that might change. “Don't do that. I'll live.” Though to be honest, he didn't feel like it at the moment.

His mom made kissing noises at him. Cringing, he made them back at her, but much more subtly before he handed the phone to the nurse and blushed, then beat a hasty retreat from her office in order that he wouldn't have to face that ‘ah, how cute you are' look that so many gave him whenever he was nice to his mom.

As he moved to sit down outside to wait, he met Madaug St. James, who came into the office with a delivery for the secretary. At just under six feet, he was the son of two Squire brain surgeons—literally. Which was what had allowed him to create a mind-altering video game that demons had enchanted and used to possess their classmates.

Yeah, good times …

Not even a little. Nick was still having violent flashbacks from his Zombie Hunter experience. It was so bad, he couldn't even watch a zombie movie to this day. And poor Madaug couldn't so much as play solitaire on his PC after it.

Still, he was one of Nick's best friends. And it was nice to occasionally hang out with someone who was frightfully normal, Madaug's extremely high IQ notwithstanding. After all, compared to Madaug, most people had the intelligence of a head of cabbage.

“Hey, Nick! What are you doing up here?”

“About to hurl.”

Madaug jumped back. “Dude, I'm sorry. You contagious? 'Cause if you are, I want it! I have a test next period and I'm not prepared.”

Yeah, right. Madaug was always prepared for tests. Even for the ones they wouldn't have until the end of the year. Kid was sick that way.

“Trust me, you don't want any part of this one.”

“Yeah, you do look kind of green and disoriented. I take it that means you're going to miss band practice after school?”

Nick nodded. “Thanks for reminding me. Can you tell the others?”

“Sure, but Marlon's going to kill you. He's been looking forward to it. He has a massive crush on Duff.”

“Sorry. What's his problem anyway?”

“What? Duff? I don't know. Distemper. Maybe parvo.”

Nick scowled. “Isn't that a dog disease?”

“Yes, but I think our resident teen were-panther has it, too. At least he acts like it most days.”

That he did. He took brooding teen male to a whole new level. The entire three years he'd been in school with them, Nick had never heard him say a single word to anyone. “Is he really mute or did he sell his voice to a wizard?”

Madaug laughed. “Neither. The correct term is selective mutism. His is an extreme case of it. Most likely caused by his … you are giving me
that
look.”