Intensity

by Sherrilyn Kenyon

  Ambrose nodded. "Almost there."

  "Summoning." And he definitely wasn't fond of it as the ability to bring or summon any demon into his realm came without any effort whatsoever. All he needed was their correct name.

  Sometimes not even that. It was one power Nick could do without as it'd gotten him into all kinds of trouble over the years. Not to mention, his current "pet" Zavid. Although the hellhound would be the first to protest that label, it was still apropos. Nick hadn't meant to bind Zavid to him as a servant, but again, as the Malachai, it was just a little too easy to do it.

  Sadly, it was much harder to break.

  "You forgot one. The most important one, too."

  Nick froze as he ran back through them. "No, I didn't."

  "Yeah, you did. Think about it for a minute." Then Ambrose ran over the list again. "There are ten powers. You named nine. Necromancy. Perspicacity. Teleportation. Silkspeech. Clairvoyance. Telekinesis. Divination and conjuring. And summoning ... That's nine."

  He was right. 'Course there was a reason why he'd forgotten the last one. It was one Nick didn't play around with because it was the one he screwed up with the most. And it was the one you really didn't want to screw up as it had some of the worst consequences, hence Vawn's predicament of being a guy trapped in the body of a girl. And it'd been the one that had caused his friend Madaug to be turned into a goat for a while. "Transformation."

  "Yeah," Ambrose breathed. "Transformation."

  Nick froze as he finally understood what his older incarnation was trying to tell him. "Cyprian isn't in his real body."

  "No. It's why you can't recognize him or feel another Malachai around you."

  Just like he didn't see the Dark-Hunter bow and arrow mark on Ambrose's face whenever he appeared to him or the Malachai marks. Because they hid those. A Malachai could appear as anyone or anything he chose to.

  Like Simi, or any of the Charonte demons. They could have any body or appearance they wanted.

  Young. Old.

  Crap ...

  And with a Malachai here, Nick's powers would be weaker and weaker. His son would drain him until he was too weak to fight. "Why is he here? Do you know? I mean, if he kills me, he won't be born. Right?"

  "You have never learned to ask the right questions, kid. Don't you get it?"

  He faded into the abyss.

  "Wait! Come back!"

  Nick growled in frustration. "If you know the answer, why don't you tell me!" He hated whenever they did that crap with him. Why did they have to play these games? Why not spill the beans and let him make soup or toss it?

  "I swear I'm getting a tumor from all this!" Nick sighed as he listened to the voices in the aether and tried to sort through the madness of it all. Millions of thoughts came at him simultaneously. A cacophony of complaints, needs and wants. No wonder the gods tuned them out. You had to or you'd lose your mind.

  It was unrelenting. People ricocheted through life like random pinballs speeding through one giant machine. Everything about it made him dizzy.

  Honestly, he didn't know how Acheron remained sane. In some ways, he wished Ambrose had never told him about his future.

  Closing his eyes, Nick tapped the very powers he'd mentioned. His clairvoyance opened and left him standing over his mother's body.

  Left him in the darkness of his own home, feeling betrayed by Acheron and Kyrian for allowing the Daimons they fought to murder her in cold blood.

  More than that was the guilt. He should have been there. Tears streamed down his face as pain lacerated him. His mother had given him life. Had sheltered and protected him with everything she had. And how had he returned her love?

  He'd left her defenseless when she needed him most. On the very night when the Daimons had come to his door in the guise of a Dark-Hunter, Nick had been out with the other Squires patrolling to protect strangers.

  Not his mother.

  He'd left her in the hands of the immortal protectors who'd sworn to keep humans safe from the demons who preyed on them. Trusted in Acheron and his army to shelter the only person he needed and loved.

  A woman who had been kind and caring toward all of them. Nick choked on a sob as he saw her throat slashed open and her glazed, glassy eyes that accused him of carelessness.

  This was his unstoppable future.

  The one pith point he couldn't change. No matter what he tried, all roads led him here.

  Throwing his head back, he shouted out in agony. Why couldn't he save her? With all the powers he had?

  We are destruction ...

  The voice of the Malachai whispered through him. It was a thunderous, dark sound that he knew well. An amalgam of all his predecessors. Older than time, it reverberated through his entire being.

  With it came that surge of power. Primal and raw. Nick forced it down. He didn't want to go Malachai.

  Not now.

  He needed to stay rational and to figure this out. He couldn't give in to the hatred. There was too much on the line. Too many that he cared about.

  "I won't let you tell me who I am," he breathed. "I am Nick Gautier." Tomorrow, he might become Ambrose Malachai. But it wouldn't be today.

  No. Not today.

  Suddenly, his phone rang. Jumping, he answered it, no longer thinking it peculiar. Peculiar was becoming his new middle name.

  However, that being said, what he did find shocking was to find Virgil Ward on the other end.

  "You remember me, kid?"

  "Um, yeah."

  As a blood-sucking attorney, literally, Virgil was a hard creature to forget. A little over six feet tall, he didn't appear to be any older than sixteen or seventeen--Nick's age when Virgil had been turned into a real vampire after a demon had bitten him. Now he spent eternity working night court for the damned and preternatural as part of the Laurens and Ward Law Firm in a posh downtown office.

  Virgil was also the only one whose powers of persuasion and masking put Nick's to shame. That boy could pull the wool over anyone's eyes.

  "Good. I just got off the phone with your mom and I'm going to walk you into the police station to see about this matter where they want to talk to you, and make sure you don't hit lock-up, for reasons we all know. Where are you?"

  "Do you know a guy named Takeshi?"

  "As in the zeitjager, kick-your-hide-sideways?"

  "That'd be the one."

  "Very familiar. Still have the boot prints on my left cheek. You with him?"

  "Affirmative."

  "Good lad. Safe place. I like it. Can you put him on the phone for me?"

  Before Nick could answer, a strange buzzing started on the line. One that drowned out Virgil's voice. His vision dimmed. Pain exploded through his head and left him in absolute agony.

  What the heck?

  He blinked in an effort to clear his vision. Yet all it did was make him queasy. Dizzier. The darkness lifted into a bright, searing light that made it even harder for him to see.

  Tires squealed.

  Before Nick could recover, something slammed into him and sent him careening through the air.

  An instant later, he landed on the pavement and realized that he'd been struck by a car.

  Unable to move, he lay in the street as his entire body throbbed. Voices assaulted him. He tried to get up and focus.

  Everything was hazy and surreal.

  You are mine, Malachai. And I will make you bleed ...

  CHAPTER 4

  Nick could feel the breath of his son on the back of his neck as his powers weakened and left him feeling drained and helpless. For the first time in his life, he understood his father's animosity toward him. It was an involuntary survival instinct built in to their Malachai DNA that wanted to destroy anything that threatened them.

  It was innate and primal. Terrifying. The fact that his father had gone down protecting him and his mother said a lot for Adarian.

  That alone allowed him to finally forgive his father for the sins that had created Nick. Allowed him

to let go of the hatred and anger he'd borne for the creature who'd sired him. For the first time ever, he understood his father's mind set.

  And what made his mother such an incredible gift. Even after all the horrors his father had put her through, she'd still been able to find the good in both of them. Rather than hate Nick for the violence of his conception, she'd found a way to see past the horror of it. Never once had she held his father's acts against him.

  You are my most precious baby boy, Nicky-Boo. There's never anything you could do to make me not love you, through and through. For you are, and will always be, my baby angel.

  It was why the thought of her future murder crippled him now and would one day destroy him. She truly saw no evil in this world.

  For he was a Malachai born of equal part Mavromino and equal part Kalosum. Like the firstborn, Monakribos, Nick alone shared that unique birthright.

  So how then, could he have a son born of such hatred that he could feel it crawling over his skin like a living creature? This amount of venom came straight from the Source. He sensed it as if it were a part of him.

  All Malachai were conceived in violence to do violence and to die violently.

  Yet Nick knew that he'd never, ever be able to harm another person that way. It just wasn't in him to act the way his father had.

  Never. He knew himself better than that.

  Laughter echoed in the aether, in and out and all around as he pushed himself to his feet. Something else sizzled.

  He turned a circle in the darkness, seeking some hint of the malevolent child he could feel and not see. Why were they playing this cruel game of hide-and-seek?

  Suddenly, he was surrounded. The very shadows emerged into the light to attack.

  These were the kinds of demons he knew well.

  With his Malachai powers, he summoned his sword and went after them. He felt the familiar surge of rage, but quickly pushed it down. Don't give in. He knew better than to let his anger rule him. In spite of what Caleb and Xev thought, he was paying attention during his lessons.

  He heard his instructors and friends.

  Most days anyway.

  He spun and caught the first demon behind him with a vicious blow that caused it to shrink back into the darkness. Another came forward to attack. Nick barely countered in time to keep it from slashing his arm. But he severed its hand. It shrieked and withdrew.

  "Nick!"

  That was Virgil's voice.

  Nick's sight dimmed. Everything shook and spiraled. What he heck? He wasn't sure what happened. Not until he began to fall through the aether again.

  What was this feeling? It was as if he had no grounding anywhere. Something was pulling him against his will. He had no control.

  Not until he found himself back on the floor of Takeshi's home with Simi, Takeshi and Nashira standing over him like a group of worried parents.

  Blinking, he stared up at them. "Having that moment where I feel like my mom was calling me for dinner and I was on the last level of a videogame and didn't hear her 'cause the big boss was almost dead and there was no pause on the game."

  Takeshi rolled his eyes. "Feeling like that parent who wants to beat my kid, but can't because I don't want to go to jail and ruin my credit scores."

  Nick scowled. "Bruh, that makes no sense."

  "Neither does what you just said. Now you know how we feel."

  Snorting, he took Takeshi's hand and let him pull him to his feet. "What happened?"

  "Don't know. Your eyes rolled back in your head and you hit the ground pretty hard. You okay?"

  Nick rubbed at the large bruise that was forming on the base of his skull. "Major concussion would definitely explain the rodier I just went on."

  "Rodier?"

  "You know ... wander about aimlessly? Drag the streets? Make a pass through ... Never mind. I've gone Cajun and y'all looking at me like Kody did the first time I asked her if she was playing rat de bois with me or if she wanted to go make groceries."

  Takeshi scowled. "Do what?"

  Nashira shook her head. "Rat de bois means opossum. The other means he's going to the market for food."

  "Seriously?"

  She nodded. "Hanging out in his pocket has been quite the education."

  "I can imagine."

  Nick snorted. "Hey now, don't you even slap on me given the random acts of violence against the entire English language that comes out of the mouths of Aeron, Vawn and Kaziel. I only get about one-fifth of everything they say. Some days, not even that much."

  Laughing, Takeshi brushed his thumb against his bottom lip. "So what happened?"

  "I don't know. I got snatched into the aether by ... something. The other Malachai, maybe? At least I think that's what happened." Nick pressed the heel of his hand against his eye to ease the ache there. "How can he be here? And who the heck is he? Who's his mother?"

  Nashira and Takeshi passed a look between themselves that said they knew the answer, but had no intention of sharing it.

  "C'mon, guys! Really? You can't sit on this one! You have to tell me something. Especially if you know who he is."

  Takeshi shook his head. "Nick, you know the law and how this works. The more you know, the worse it gets."

  "Then why do I have Clairvoyance at all?"

  "Do you?"

  He had a point and Nick hated him for it. From what he understood about the power, even when it worked, it wasn't foolproof. "Why do you have it?"

  "Because I don't use or abuse the power. I know how dangerous it is to tamper with things best left undisturbed."

  Nick was about to snark at him when he felt a peculiar sensation go through him. One that was unmistakable and left him sick to his stomach.

  Eyes wide, he met Simi's gaze. "Kody's under attack!"

  Without waiting for anyone, he teleported to her house. To his horror, he found her there, surrounded by more than a dozen mortent demons. True to her breeding, she was holding her own. But she'd broken a good sweat and was definitely outnumbered.

  "Need a little hand, cher?"

  She passed him a disgruntled grimace. "Nah, sugar, I got this. Go have some lunch."

  Laughing at her sarcasm, he manifested his Malachai sword and moved in to protect her back. Still the demons kept coming. It was like a bad dream.

  "How are they getting in?"

  Kody shook her head as she parried another assault. "No idea. I had everything locked down. Nothing should have been able to breach my shields."

  Nick hissed as the demon he was fighting caught him with his fangs. Punching the wretched beast knocked him away. "Well, this isn't fun!"

  Simi, Takeshi and Nashira finally joined them.

  "Did y'all get lost?"

  "No. Her sigils blocked us."

  Kody lopped the head off the demon she was fighting before she gave him an I-told-you-so stare.

  "Yeah, but they're here. You can't argue with this." He gestured at the carcasses of the smelly beasts lining Kody's floor.

  "I know. It defies my best ability to explain it." Takeshi glanced to Simi who was staring at the wall. "What do you see, Sim?"

  "The evil Arel. He did this."

  Kody gasped. "Sroasha?"

  Simi nodded. "Him mad that you not kill Akri-Nick. So he now working with them Grim and War to kill you, Akra-Kody."

  "Well, that's a load!" Nick felt his eyes change as his powers surged from the rush of anger that went through him at the thought of Kody being harmed. Especially because of him. "I thought we'd gotten rid of those pricks."

  But he knew better. That had been wishful thinking on his part. The Arelim controlled Kody. They were the whole reason she was here. The reason she'd been brought back from the dead in the future and sent back in time.

  Her eyes sad, she cupped his face in her hands. "Breathe, Nick. It'll be fine."

  He didn't believe it for a minute. Everything was spiraling out of control, faster than he could catch it. Faster than he could catch his breath.

  She kissed his lips, then grimaced at him. "And why are you here with Takeshi and Nashira?"

  "You know Takeshi?"

  What a stupid question. Of course she knew him. She knew everyone.

  "He was friends with my father and uncle."

  Nick didn't miss the odd light in Takeshi's gaze as he studied Kody. "What's that look mean?"

  "Deja vu."

  Now it was Nashira's turn to go pale. "You can't have that."

  "Yeah, I know. But I'm having it anyway, and it's freaking me out as much as it is you." Takeshi jerked his chin toward Kody. "The last time I saw her, she was a grown woman. She's not supposed to look like this. That's not her body ..."

  Kody scowled. "Pardon?"

  Takeshi crossed his arms over his chest as he surveyed the house and the dead demons on the floor. "You don't remember your life, do you?"

  "Of course! I remember my father and brothers. My mother ..."

  "What do you know of Nick?"

  "He killed me and my family."

  Takeshi let out a nervous breath. "No, Neria. He didn't."

  She narrowed her eyes and stepped back in confusion. "Are you sure?"

  "You know I would never lie to you. Have you really forgotten your children?"

  Indecision played across her features as she shook her head. "I was a girl in battle."

  "No, you weren't."

  Kody glanced back at Nick and the uncertainty in those green eyes scorched him. "It makes sense, in a weird way. I think that's why I couldn't kill you when I first met you like Sroasha wanted me to."

  Takeshi gaped. "Pardon?"

  She swallowed hard before she spoke again. "He sent me back in time to stop the Malachai. First Jeros and then we went through several of them. I failed each time because they were far more powerful than I was ... until we got to Nick. Him, I could have taken. Easily, because he hadn't come into his powers yet. He was too young and ridiculous when I met him. But for some reason, I couldn't bring myself to take the killshot even though I knew he'd eventually go bad and kill everyone I loved. I kept seeing the good in him and thinking that he could be saved." She cupped Nick's cheek. "There was something about him I couldn't resist."

  "It's the Rubati blood in you. Instinctively, it calls to Monakribos, regardless of the incarnation of your own body. And that's why Nick is leashed with you by his side. You anchor him, just as she anchored Kree all those centuries ago."

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