“Yeah, but you loved your brother, right?”

Ash didn’t respond as he walked up the stairs that led to the front door. Which told Nick everything. Whoever his brother had been, they must not have gotten along. Sad, really. He’d always wondered what it would be like to have a sibling. His mother was the closest thing to that he’d ever know.

Nick took the steps two at a time. He’d just stepped onto the porch when Rosa opened the door for them. Even though she was in her forties, she was still incredibly beautiful. Her dark hair fell to her shoulders and she was dressed in a pink top and jeans.

“Hola, Rosa,” Nick said, offering her a smile.

She returned his smile with one that was as warm as a mother’s. “Hola, m’ijos. ¿Cómo está?”

“Bien, gracias. Y tú?”

“Muy bien.” She closed the door behind him. “Nick, your Spanish is getting so good. Soon we no longer speak English together.” Her smile widened at Acheron. “And how are you, Aqueron?”

“Bien. Is Kyrian up in his office?”

“He is.”

Ash headed for the ornate curving staircase.

“So, Nick, ¿quieres tú comer?”

He hesitated. “Wait, you threw in a new word.” Then his memory kicked. “Food. No, eat! Do I want to eat. Absolutely. What we got today?”

She laughed at him. “I hope you marry a woman who cooks well. Otherwise, m’ijo, I think you will have a short marriage.”

“That’s what my mom says.” As they neared the kitchen, he caught a whiff of what was cooking. “Oh no you din’t! Is that—”

“Si, pollo cacciatore, your favorite.”

“Only when you make it.” His mouth was already watering for a taste. No one cooked better than Rosa.

“I will make your plate while you take the trash.”

“Yes, ma’am.” But he did pause by the pan to inhale a good whiff of it. Man, he could live on that for days.…

Forcing himself away from it, he pulled the trash liner out and headed out the back door to where the cans were located.

As he was putting the lid back on the can, he heard something click. At first he didn’t pay any attention to it. Not until a chill went down his spine, and in his mind, he saw himself being attacked.

Shaking his head, he’d just convinced himself he was being paranoid when all of a sudden someone tackled him to the ground.

“You little punk!” The man slammed a baseball bat down across his arm.

Nick cursed as he felt bones shatter under the blow. He moved to roll over and escape. But the man hit him with three more furious strikes, then started kicking him. Nick tried to crawl toward the house, but blow after blow alternated with kick after kick.

I’m going to die.…

He knew it. He couldn’t even defend himself.

All of a sudden, someone grabbed the man and hauled him off Nick.

Kyrian knelt by his side. “Nick? Can you hear me?”

“That little bastard raped my daughter! I hope he’s dead!”

“Rosa! Call an ambulance! Pronto!” Kyrian pulled his jacket off and draped it over Nick’s body. “Stay with me, Nick. Please don’t make me have to tell your mother you’re dead. She’ll kill me.”

Nick couldn’t respond. He was so cold that his teeth were chattering. Behind him, he could hear Acheron on his phone, reporting the attack to the police.

Crying and praying, Rosa knelt down next to Kyrian and pressed her rosary into Nick’s hand.

“How can you protect scum like that? What’s wrong with you people?”

“He didn’t do it,” Acheron growled in the man’s face. “You just assaulted an innocent boy.”

“You think I don’t know that little punk? I’ve seen him around the school. He’s been in classes with my daughter for years. And I hope they lock him up for the rest of his life.”

Nick was finally able to move his head enough so that he could see who it was.

Mr. Quattlebaum. Dina’s father. His head swam from pain, but he tried to focus. He needed to think through this. Dina was one of Brynna’s tight friends. He barely knew her. Quiet and shy, she seldom spoke to anyone. He couldn’t even remember the last time he’d seen her.

Sirens rang out, drawing closer. Don’t pass out.… Nick kept that thought foremost in his mind. He didn’t want to go back to the Nether Realm. Not right now.

Kyrian left him to open the gate for the ambulance and police.

Nick tried to return Rosa’s rosary. It’d been her First Communion present from her father, who had died of a heart attack not long after he’d given it to her. She counted it among her most precious possessions.

“No, m’ijo. You keep it for now so that God will watch over you. You can return it later.”

As the EMTs started working on him, Nick heard the sound of laughter. Low and coming from the ether. At first, he thought he was crazy.

Until the police handcuffed Dina’s father. The moment they hauled him toward the front of the house, Nick saw a demon shimmer out of Mr. Quattlebaum’s body.

It was a demon he knew.

Where had he seen it? He had to remember, but the pain made it impossible. As he struggled to stay conscious, the ether voices screamed louder.

He saw his classmates as they read the lies and awful truths that had been posted about each other online. For weeks now, Brynna and the other girls had been harassed and accused of all kinds of vice. Fights had broken out constantly, even after the school meetings.

Trexian …

That was the demon he’d seen.

The EMT put an oxygen mask over his face. Nick tried to call out to Caleb or Kody with his thoughts to let them know what he suspected and what had happened. But before he could, the EMTs knocked him out.

* * *

Grim sighed as he watched Nick being placed inside an ambulance. Disgusted, he set his crystal ball aside to meet Bane’s dark gaze.

“He’s slipped out of your clutches again, huh?” Bane asked drily.

“Of course he did. I’ve never seen anything like it. He’s worse than a cat.”

Bane glanced to the crystal ball. “He’s not out of danger yet. Could still get a nasty infection in the hospital. Maybe some kind of flesh-eating virus?”

“Don’t tease me, Bane. I wish.” He couldn’t kill Nick. Stupid bargain.

All he could do was continue to hammer Nick’s self-esteem and wear him down until he killed himself. But Nick was stronger than he looked. It was why they couldn’t allow him to mature. Adarian was hard enough to deal with.

Ambrosius …

He would be the most dangerous Malachai ever born.

And Bane was right. Sooner or later, Grim would find the right person to influence. And then Nick would be nothing more than a bad memory.

A slow smile spread across his face as a new plan formed. And he knew just the entity to finish Nick off.

“I know that look. What are you going to do?” Bane asked.

“I’m going to give us the heart of a Malachai.”

CHAPTER 17

Nick opened his eyes, expecting to find himself in the Nether Realm again.

Instead, he was inside a temple with a golden roof that had forest scenes of deer and other animals on it. Sunlight poured in through the white columns.

Am I dead?

“No, you’re not dead.” The heavily accented voice was thick with an accent he knew extremely well. Greek.

Nick turned his head to see a vision in a long white dress that left her right shoulder bare. Her vivid red hair fell all the way down her back in thick, fat curls. Her skin was flawless as a goddess’s should be.

“Artemis? What am I doing here?”

“We made a bargain, did we not?”

“We did.”

“Well then, I can’t have you being fought over by Thorn and Noir, can I?”

He supposed not. “Why am I so sluggish?”

“It’s the drugs they’re giving you. They affect you even in this realm.”

Who knew? Nick tried to sit up, but it was useless.

“Just relax. Rest until you awaken in the human realm.”

Nick nodded and closed his eyes. He saw himself again, summoning Artemis to heal Kody. At the time, he hadn’t been sure it would work. But in addition to being goddess of the hunt, Artemis was also a healer, and a protector of children and women. At least that was what Kyrian had told him.

As a precaution should one of the Daimons or something else try to eat him while Kyrian couldn’t help, he’d given Nick his ring that held Artemis’s symbol. And then Kyrian had told Nick how to use the ring to summon the goddess.

In the beginning of their relationship, Nick had thought Kyrian crazy. But over the last year, he’d learned crazy wasn’t what it used to be. And instead of selling Kyrian’s ring, he’d kept it just in case.

Nick had been willing to give Artemis his soul. Instead, she had only taken some of his blood. But she’d sworn him to absolute secrecy. He couldn’t tell anyone that he’d seen her.

“Why did you agree to help Kody?” he asked.

Artemis shrugged. “She’s a warrior. A huntress of her own. I have a soft knot for such women.”

Nick started to correct her mixed-up idiom, then caught himself. It was never wise to correct a god. “I still don’t understand.”

“It’s not for you to understand. Now rest. Soon you will have a battle to fight and you will need all of your strength.”

He tried to ask her what battle, but he was too weak to even do that. Against his will, he went back to sleep.

* * *

When Nick finally came to, he found himself in the ER again. At this point, they should just keep a room reserved for him—or a frequent patient card or something. What the heck? Name the hall after him since he was now on a first-name basis with half the staff.

Kyrian and his mother were there, along with Acheron and Kody.

His mother glared at him. “You are trying to put me in an early grave, aren’t you?”

“Really not.”

“You’re lucky, Nick” Kyrian said. “You have a broken arm, but the rest of it is superficial.”

“Thank the gods you have a hard head,” Acheron added. “I honestly didn’t think you’d make it given what I saw. That man was definitely after your life.”

Even so, Nick felt bad for the man. While he didn’t appreciate the beating, he well understood the man’s motivation. “What about Mr. Quattlebaum?”

Kyrian sighed. “He was arrested for battery.”

“He’s lucky I didn’t get ahold of him,” his mother growled.

“Yeah,” Kyrian agreed. “Come to find out, he’s been stalking you for the last few days, waiting until he could get you alone and attack.”

So Nick hadn’t been imagining that. Someone was watching him. Here Nick had been looking for something paranormal when it’d been a human …

Nick froze as his memory drifted to what he’d seen just before he’d passed out. Quattlebaum hadn’t been alone. He turned his head to meet Kody’s gaze. There’s a Trexian on the loose, he projected his thoughts to her.

She widened her eyes. Are you sure?

He nodded. I think it might be behind all of this.

Trexians were very similar to Ash’s Atlantean goddesses. They thrived on causing turmoil.

It all made sense.

And the only one who could find a Trexian was one of its victims. The earlier the victim, the easier to track it. And Nick had a pretty good idea who the first victim had been.

Hah, Caleb! I do read. And all that he remembered from the last time he’d consulted his grimore.

He turned his attention back to Kody. I need you to get Brynna for me.

One of Kody’s brows shot northward as a little green monster flared in her eyes. “Excuse me?”

Everyone turned to look at her expectantly.

Kody’s face flushed bright red. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to say that out loud.”

As soon as they stopped looking at her, she glared at him. Brynna?

I’m going to lay a bet that she was the original target, and even though I was one of his targets, because I’m not fully human, I’m not sure if my confronting the demon will work.

Okay, that makes sense. You’re out of the doghouse. For now.

Good, ’cause he didn’t like the scenery there. It was a cold, arctic place. While he could get into the doghouse with ninja speed, getting out of it wasn’t usually this easy. Let’s hear it for near-death experiences.

And once Kody left, he spent the next half hour arguing with his mother on why he didn’t need to stay the night for observation. It was Acheron who finally convinced her.