"Yeah ... thanks."
Caleb held his hands up. "Hey, I don't judge. I fell just as far. Besides, I found a woman willing to actually marry my cantankerous demonic hide. After that, I will question no one's intelligence for the man in their life. Ever. My Lil really got the short end of it all."
Nick swallowed his beignet whole before he glared at his demon bodyguard, who was also supposed to be his best friend. At least that was what Caleb claimed and how the theory went. Though on days like this, he definitely wondered.
At well over six feet, Caleb Malphas had hair as dark as Simi's and skin the same color of caramel as Kody's.
Yet the one thing that irritated Nick about his running-mate--aside from Caleb's rather caustic and biting barbs he never kept to himself and that were usually directed at Nick--were those Hollywood good looks that always left Nick feeling extremely inadequate. 'Course that was just a front. While Caleb might appear tall, dark, handsome and composed, his natural state of being was as an orange-fleshed, fanged demon.
Yeah, he was a total freak when he didn't have his human disguise up.
"Don't you have something better to do like raze a village? Haunt a house? Torment the damned? And I don't mean me. This is New Orleans, you know? There's a lot more condemned folks here than just my little Cajun hide. Look around. I'm sure you can find a lot more worthy target for your venom. Surely?"
"Yeah, but it's so much more fun to scare a little boy who's afraid of clowns." Caleb flashed an evil grin at him.
Nick shifted indignantly as he knew exactly what Caleb was referring to and he didn't appreciate it in the least. "Hey now, that thing ain't no clown I'm afraid of ... it's a Mardi Gras jester. Get your terms straight, old man. Your senility's showing again. Besides, it's evil and talks under the light of your magic. And you know it. So don't you be hassling me over a well-founded fear about Mr. Creepy and his little head on a stick. That thing's nasty and whoever put it in the middle of a tourist district where they got little kids walking by it all the time ought to be tied naked to a Mardi Gras float on a cold rainy day and left there to be mocked. Just saying. It's all kinds of wrong."
And it wasn't like Nick was the only person alive with coulrophobia. That fear was quite common and normal. Maybe not for a Malachai demon who could tear a clown apart, but still ...
Nick hadn't known he was the Malachai until many years after he'd developed his coulro-jester-phobia ... on a stick. By then, his fear had become second nature.
Caleb made a rude dismissive noise before he passed a snide stare to Kody. "You know he's still having nightmares about that night?"
At least Kody defended him. "I'm still having nightmares about that night. I don't fault him on that account. It was pretty gruesome."
Yeah, and his father, the baddest Malachai ever born, had died in that battle.
And all of them had been wounded. The night they'd faced the talking jester with the tiny head, and the demon krewe had been that terrifying.
"Thank you, sug!" Nick kissed the air in her direction before he picked up another beignet and shoved it in his mouth whole.
"But I can't watch this." She turned her back and shuddered. "I'm getting diabetes just being here."
"And losing respect for your boy by the heartbeat," Caleb added.
To Nick's immediate cry of, "Hey!" Kody still ignored them both.
And neither of that kept Caleb from his merciless quest to have fun at Nick's expense. "You're a ghost," Caleb reminded her. "You can't get diabetes."
"So you say. I'm willing to debate it." She shivered again even though she couldn't see their contest any longer. "I can't watch this insanity. Simi? You got my boy covered?"
Simi doused another plate of beignets with barbecue sauce. "'Course I do, Akri-Kody. The Simi won't let no demons or nothing else et your demon-boy or hurt him on my watch. Promise. Cross my heart, with barbecue sauce on top."
"Thank you, Ms. Simi. I'll see you two later."
Nick licked at the sugar on his fingertips as he watched Kody head off in the direction of her house. He cut a meaningful stare toward Caleb. "Speaking of ... aren't you afraid your house guests are going to set fire to something? Like the whole, entire planet? Now that all three of the evil Celts are together and alone without adult or any kind of responsible supervision ... "
Caleb went pale. "Yeah, clowns don't scare me. An unsupervised war god, hellhound and banshee ... this could have nuclear-level meltdown repercussions. Only thing worse would have been to leave Bubba with them. See ya later."
Wiping his hands down the leg of his jeans, Nick tried not to be too obvious. But he couldn't help the intense way he stared after them both, making sure they were completely out of sight before he returned to Simi. He brushed his dark brown hair back from his eyes. "Okay, I think we're safe now."
Simi looked up with a slight pout which was made twice as adorable given that her mouth was covered in powdered sugar and barbecue sauce. He didn't know why, but that combined with her black and red cybergoth pigtails made her look more like a kid his age than a demon who was thousands of years old. And while her speech was unorthodox to most ears, it came from the fact that English wasn't her native or primary tongue.
Charonte was.
Unlike the Malachai who could speak all languages with ease, she sometimes had trouble navigating between the two languages--especially with subject-verb agreement, something that often caused her to ramble as she tried to make sense of words that baffled her with their similarities.
To her, many of them were superfluous and unnecessary, as in humans should be able to follow her meaning simply by the context. And if they couldn't ... Well, to quote Simi, poo on you.
Not that Nick minded her random jumps in logic or sequence. While he might understand and speak all languages, he was most fluent in Gibberish most days anyway.
And, he should get special bonus points for speaking in rapidly fluent Stupidity. At least according to his mom, and most of his teachers. If there was a wrong thing to say at a wrong time, he had a Ph.D. in it.
Dr. Nick Dumb-butt. That was him.
"What?" Simi battered her eyelashes. "You meant we gotta go now?"
"They might come back if we don't."
"Well, poo to that!" Simi sighed heavily in her obvious disappointment. "And here the Simi was all happy with her eats. You a mean demon-boy to drag the Simi away mid feastery!"
"That's what they tell me." And it was what he was trying his best to avoid. That and ending the world as they knew it. He'd really like to die centuries from now without causing the world to go with him on his way through the Pearly Gates.
Nick winced as that cold reality slapped him hard for the ten millionth time. He missed the days when he'd looked forward to a normal future of routine college, wife, kids, nine-to-five job, and growing fat, old and complacent with the world around him. When he'd been ignorant of his true destiny and future role in the larger universe.
It sucked to know that you would one day be the end of all living things.
At least that was what Kody and Caleb had led him to believe, but now ...
They didn't know anymore. It was why he needed Simi to take him to Olympus so that he could meet his half-brother, the sleep god, and ask Madoc about time-travel and consequences. Nick needed answers and he didn't want anyone to interfere with the real stupidity he was planning. Which was exactly what Caleb and Kody would do if they were here.
They'd stop him from being even more suicidal than he already was. Warn him to stay away from Madoc and tell him why the last thing he needed was to cross those lines.
But as Kody had noted, he didn't listen whenever he had his head set on something.
Simi tucked her barbecue sauce into her coffin-shaped purse, then wiped her mouth. "Okies. Whenever you's ready."
"I was born ready for being an idiot." Nick braced himself for their trip through the dimension portals that he hated so much.
Simi blinked her eyes and je
rked her head like a bird.
He felt that cold familiar, weird fluttering in his stomach that he got any time he had to cross into other planes or dimensions. Faster than he was prepared for, kaleidoscope colors twisted and blended and then quickly sorted themselves out. It was the strangest head trip. Like throwing hot crayons into a blender and leaving the lid off--something Nick didn't advise anyone doing unless they really wanted their mother to disown them or ground them for the rest of their natural born lives.
It took him a second to get his bearings. Especially since this wasn't where he was expecting to end up.
Yeah, not by a longshot. Confused, he glanced around the green and dark orange room that was way out of context. Had they taken a wrong turn at the bright light on the left? Or was this something else?
He'd assumed all of Olympus would be similar to Artemis's Greek temple, where he'd met the goddess before. Big columns. Lots of white and gold. Delicate marble things everywhere that made him extremely nervous as he was forever banging into stuff and knocking it over. 'Cause he never knew where his limbs ended these days.
That it would have some frescos. Gaudy paint. Weird fauna and robed attendants who were way too happy, given the unpredictable natures of the beings they served. That it would at least have something remotely Greek to it.
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 keiko 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 zeitjager. 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 o
ff 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 yokai 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.
Nashira smiled. "I was an oracle long before I met Takeshi."
Okay, he'd go with that. But it still left him with one burning question.
"So you really were a zeitjager?"
The fact that Nick knew about that part of his past didn't appear to surprise Takeshi. "An exceptionally long time ago I wore that garb and played that role. Yes."
That wasn't exactly how Nick had been told those time-sentinel things worked. Rather his understanding had been you were born as one of them and had to do it forever. Like being a Malachai. There was no choice.
No escape.
Which begged one majorly important question. "So how did you get out?"
"Made a pact with Zev Kotori."