"I care a lot." Nick held his hand out for Ian, who took it and held it tight.

"Let him bring the small creature," the blob said. "There's no harm in it."

"Very well." The woman stepped back. "If you'll follow me."

Nick obeyed and the blob fell in behind them as the woman led the way down a dank hallway that reminded him of an old factory. "Where are we?"

"That's not important." She opened a door and stood back to let him and Ian enter first. Nick hesitated. Glancing around, he made sure there was no immediate threat before he moved forward.

Inside was a large room that definitely belonged to a warehouse. The rusted green walls had seen better years. There was dust, cobwebs, and broken glass everywhere.

But that wasn't what was important.

It was Madaug, his mom, Eric, Tabitha, and Stone, who were all being held in a cage.

"Mama!" Ian ran to his mother to hug her through the bars.

Nick knew better than to be so relieved, as he saw the three demons who seemed to be in charge. He recognized the woman from the alley and the two men who had been with her. Now in human form, they were dressed all in leather. The men in black and the woman in bright bloodred.

Her blond hair was slicked back from her face as she approached him slowly like a predator. "You are ever a surprise."

He didn't know what that meant, but he was pretty sure it wasn't a good thing. "What's going on here?"

She gestured to the wall on his right, where a huge monitor was set up and a game was on pause. "Do you know the power of that game?"

"I know the power of all games. They're mesmerizing." His mom called them time-sucks because once you started playing, human concept of time slowed down. What seemed like five minutes of play equaled an hour in real time. Even Menyara had called them a tool of evil.

In this case, she might be right.

Nick saw the dazed look on Tabitha, Madaug, and Eric's faces. "What have you done to them?"

"They're the ones who played." She held a controller out for him. "Don't you want to join them in a match and beat their high score?"

The blob put his hand on Nick's shoulder and pushed him toward the woman. Suddenly, he felt trapped. Stifled.

It was a sensation he'd always hated. And one that ignited his temper.

She took the game off pause. "Look at it, Nicholas."

Nick tried to turn away, but the blob grabbed him and forced him to face it. He slammed his eyes shut. The blob grabbed him from behind and forced his lids open until he had no choice but to watch.

His breathing ragged, Nick struggled as hard as he could, but it was futile.

Before he even realized what he was doing, he was watching the central character—a blond man dressed in a long flowing coat—executing the army of zombies in an old cemetery as the game's mission scrolled across the screen. The impulse to play radiated through him until he had no choice except to obey.

In a world where ancient evil has been unleashed, there is only one hope for mankind.

You.

Your mission is to fight the zombies, humans who ve been turned into mindless killers, through the cemetery to the ancient catacombs where an elixir was hidden long ago by a fair princess. Collect your items of protection and weapons along the way until you are virtually indestructible.

Your w'ts and your prowess are the only things that cant be taken away. But be warned. Even those closest to you can be turned and they w'll turn against you while you fight. The only way to power up is to eat the hearts of your enemies and to lay waste to as many as you can. Your experience points w'll dramatically increase the power of your blows.

Good luck, warrior.

May the ancient gods be w'th you.

The lights of the game flashed, entrancing him. Nick struggled to stay alert to everything around him, but he couldn't focus on anything except the main character. It was like the two of them were one. Like he was Necodemus the Necromancer fighting through the ever-growing army of zombies.

Every kill gave him a heart or weapon to collect. Every kill brought him closer to the catacomb....

You are ours, a voice whispered in his ear.

Nick felt himself slipping into a fog. Completely unaware of everything around him, he played the game. It was like he stood on a precipice that allowed him to see straight into infinity. Time slowed and bent, the universe whispered secrets to him.

And with every kill he felt more powerful. More invincible.

You are the Malachai. Those words whispered through his mind as images assaulted him. Images of him beating down his enemies. Of every bully, every Stone and Mr. Peters in his life getting exactly what they deserved. Not death—that would be too kind for their special breed of brutality—something worse. Much, much worse.

They became him. They were the ones who were mocked and belittled and laughed at, and made to feel like they were less than nothing.

Each and everyone of them. Every insult. Every snide comment and look. It was all returned to them tenfold.

They begged for mercy while he gave to them the same amount they'd given him in his life.

None whatsoever.

Take that, you scum-sucking snipes. Eat your words and your cruelty. May you drown in it and die.

"He's ours now," the mortent leader announced. "Not made by evil, butbirthed by human cruelty." She handed Nick a sword. "Now take your vengeance on the ones who've mocked you. Kill them and eat their brains."

Nick turned to Stone, whose eyes were large and filled with terror. Every nasty comment and insult he'd ever given Nick played through his head now. Right down to Stone getting him thrown off the team. To Stone trying to get him thrown out of school....

Screaming in outrage, Nick ran at the pig so that he could gut him once and for all.

CHAPTER 18

Stone fell back in his cage, screaming like a four-year-old girl who'd lost her favorite toy as he held his arms up to protect himself and beg for his life.

Nick tasted vengeance and honestly...

It was sweet and satisfying.

But it wasn't filling, no matter how much he wanted it to be. In fact, it was hollow and cold. Even though he tried to tell himself Stone deserved nothing but the humiliation he'd heaped onto others' heads, that he deserved to die for what he'd done to other people, Nick couldn't buy it.

He finally understood what Ambrose had tried to tell him about Mike, Tyree, and Alan.

/ dont want to be like Stone and the others.

To have no friends. No decency. To not be able to enjoy anything because he was too busy being jealous and petty over other people.

Stone was pathetic. He was weak.

Most of all, he wasn't worth Nick damning himself for. In the end, nothing could be cruelerthan leaving Stone to live his putrid life of false friends and petty jealousies. Friends who didn't really like him. Who only wanted to use him for what they could get.

Yeah, that was hell on earth and he wanted no part of it. While Nick could be happy wearing used clothes and living in squalor with his mother and Menyara, Stone couldn't be happy in a mansion with every over-priced toy and gadget his parents could give him.

How could Nick ever envy or want that? He doesnt deserve to live. Think of all the others he's tortured. The others hell torture in the future if you let him

go-

Nick pressed the tip of his sword against Stone's throat as Stone wet his pants and wept. And still the voice in his head was unrelenting.

Spill the blood of your enemy and you w'll command armies.... You w'll be free.

No one w'll ever mock you again.

Ever.

He felt the cold hand of something evil on the nape of his neck, caressing him. "Do it," a soft, gentle voice urged. "Make yourself strong enough to command the respect of everyone you meet. Then no one will mock you ever again. You have to kill your enemies to have respect and be free of your past."

The mortent was right. The only way to be free was to kill his enemies and bury them deep.

But there was more than one way to slay them. Stone and his kind had already taken up too much of his past. Nick wasn't about to give them his future too.

All of a sudden, the dagger and book in his pocket heated up as something inside him was freed. Not by his hatred. Not by his need for revenge.

It was his sense of justice. A clarity of thought he'd never had before. He didn't want the respect of people who weren't worth wiping his nose on—people who weren't worth the spat-out gum attached to the bottom of his worn-out shoes.

The only respect he wanted was from himself and the people who really mattered in his life. The people who really loved and cared about him.

That definitely wasn't Stone or the mortents or any of the stuck-up snobs in his school or his principal.

It was from his mother and a bunch of Bourbon Street strippers who were raising him to be better. From people like Menyara, Liza, Bubba, and Kyrian.

Most of all, he wanted to be worth the respect and love of Nekoda.

"You got it." Nick stepped back and turned on the mortents. "My enemies aren't the bullies in my life." Honestly, people like Stone had made him strong and he was thankful for that. He'd found strength in his pain. Strength of character and dignity. The strength to hold his head high no matter what cruelty the world hurled at him. The very things Stone and his ilk lacked.

His enemies weren't the pathetic buttwipes who mocked and hated him for things he couldn't help.

His enemies were the ones who told him lies under the guise of being his friends. The ones who wanted him to be like them. To ruin his life and throw away everything he'd worked so hard to become.

He heard the book whispering to him....

"Arrasee-terra. Gitana mortelay dohn. Erra me tihani vassau. Purmi."Letme see truth. Never let flattery or hatred blind me. This is my life and I w'll live it w'sely. For me.

Not for them.

Nick threw his head back as an electric wave ripped through him. It was like a heated wire that connected every cell of his body. For one brief instant, he heard the breath of the cosmos.

"Kill him!" the mortent leader screamed.

Nick felt his arm heal instantly as he threw their sword at them. Pulling out his own, he made it bigger, then turned and broke the lock on the cage door.

Stone ran out, screaming, leaving the others behind.

"You flippin' coward." Nick kicked back the first demon to reach him as he kept them from Tabitha, Erik, Madaug, and his mother.

Ian was crying again as he tried to get his mom to wake up and see him.

Nick drove back the demons, but it didn't last long. Worse, they used Tabitha, Eric, and Madaug to attack him because they knew he wouldn't hurt them. Not while they were being used.

/ need some way to shock them. ...

"Where's a cattle prod when I need one?"

There wasn't even an outlet here. Was it too much to ask for a lightning strike? Yeah, okay, so the sky was clear, but still...

He cut across the blob demon and spun to fight the woman. All of a sudden, he felt his hand heat up as an image of Ambrose and Caleb conjuring fire went through his mind.

If they could conjure fire, could he conjure electricity?

What the heck? Might as well try. Worst thing that could happen is he'd fail and be killed by his friends.

Which was looking like the most favored outcome anyway.

Please let this work.

"Karatei!" He threw his hand out and what appeared to be a bolt of lightning shot from his fingertips to Madaug. And it turned him into a goat. Ah, crap.

Madaug ran at him and head-butted him backwards into a demon. Nick shoved the demon away and regained his balance. He glared at the goat as it eyed him. "Dude, I'm trying to help you."

But the goat didn't care; he ran at him again.

Trying to avoid a goat butt to his groin, Nick was completely surrounded while Ian kept crying for his mom to wake up. "I wish / could wake up from this nightmare."

Growling, he tried again to blast Madaug with his powers. The goat squealed and shook.

Oh, please dont die.

It'd kill Nick to know he'd done that to him.

The goat shuddered, then finally dissolved.

Nick's stomach hit the floor. Ah, crap. But no sooner had he stepped toward the goat's remains than it snapped up and Madaug returned to being a teenager.

Relief tore through him that he hadn't killed him. But it was short-lived as the zombies kept coming.

And Madaug was still one of them.

Worse, undead zombies were filling the room, while Tabitha and Eric tried to rip his arm off.

Nick twisted away from them. I'm so dead....

He grabbed lan's hand and pulled him behind his back before lan's mom took a chunk out of the poor little guy. "Don't cry, kid. I'll protect you."

But v\ho's going to protect me?

Nowwould be a good time for these supposed powers I have to kick in and help. Really... what were they waiting for?