“It’s a very special dagger,” explained Andros. “We have one, and Nero has another. They are the only blades that can kill the Nightmare King. And, I would guess… eventually they will be the only ones capable of….”
“Of killing you as well,” said Nicholas. “Once you’ve fully become queen, it will take the strike of the Sleeper or Nero’s dagger to destroy you. Nothing else will work.”
Beside them, Rachel Reyes looked absolutely mystified. She listened in muted silence, her face a mask of pure, un-adultered confusion. But the truth was, Adelaide wasn’t far behind her on that front.
“So what are you saying?” Addie asked, just wanting them to get the point.
“I’m thinking that this is a trap,” said Minnaea. “Nero knows you will go after the girl to save her. You’ve already proven you will put yourself in harm’s way to help someone.” She glanced at Rachel. “No offense, Rachel, I promise.”
She looked back to Addie before Rachel could say anything; not that she was going to. She was still too stunned.
Minnaea she went on. “And like Eva said, he probably went after Mimi specifically because of the attention she would garner. He probably assumed that someone would get a vision. If not you Addie, then Rachel here, or perhaps even Rodney, your butler. You’re all seers, most likely drawn together because of that fact. One of you would for certain see him in the Duat with the girl and you would henceforth rush to her rescue.”
She stopped talking long enough for them all to digest what she’d said, and Nicholas picked up the slack from there.
“And he knows that if you did enter the Duat, I would follow you. Thus, the dagger is for me.” He paused, then said, “He wants to finish this.”
Minnaea and Andros nodded. After a beat, Andros added, “Plus, he wants the blood of a queen to awaken Amunet. We’ve already determined this. He wants you there, Addie.” He nodded at Adelaide. “And he wants you out of the way.” He looked up at his king.
Nicholas’s eyes had gone magma red.
“Whoa,” said Rachel softly. “This shit is all real, isn’t it.” It wasn’t a question. She was just trying to work out the stuff in her head by giving it a voice. Albeit a shaky voice, but a voice.
“It is,” said Nicholas. He looked down at Addie, and those red eyes of his reminded her of so many things, delicious and sexy, and at the same time they meant so many other things that were neither.
He didn’t look away from her when he said, “We’ll take the bait. We’ll go once more into the Duat. But this time, we go in prepared.” He looked over at Minnaea and Andros. “I have an idea. If it works, it will bring an end to the Entity once and for all.”
Chapter Forty-Five
This was new. He couldn’t say he was surprised, but he was definitely disappointed, and he was more than a little afraid. Things felt different for Nero now. There was a very low-grade pain in his body, so mild but continuous that he couldn’t consciously locate its point of origin. It just felt as if something were wrong. Fundamentally so.
The Entity was still inside him, but he no longer seemed content to sit in the back seat and allow Nero to do the driving. There was no longer a lend of power, a sensation of completion. Instead, the Entity was sitting up and taking over. There was an urgency to his presence, an impatience that grated. And every time he had a thought, that thought scratched along the insides of Nero’s mind like fingernails on a chalkboard.
This was more along the lines of what he’d originally expected when he’d agreed to work with the Entity. He’d expected discomfort. Actually, he’d expected pain. The Entity was pure evil, pure hatred, and Nero was an incubus. He was far more sensitive to that ugliness than the average Joe. Frankly, he was a little surprised he hadn’t begun to experience very real mental and physical distress. Like a complete and utter fucking breakdown.
Is that what you want? the Entity asked. You’d be of little use to me in a catatonic state. And if you recall, we do have a deal. Help me to uphold my end, and you will have your reward. A kingdom to rule and a queen to rule it beside you.
Nero let the one-sided conversation go. He already knew the stakes. He was well versed in the deal. But as he watched the proceedings at the high school and wondered what the Entity’s plan could possibly be now, he grew more and more uneasy.
He’d been troubled enough when he’d seen the young queen get shot. But the Entity assured him her injury was not fatal, and he’d been proven right when the healer in the party had annulled the injury, bringing her back from death’s door.
It was enough to set him wildly on edge, though. Things were getting serious on all fronts.
There was something unfolding in the pit of him, and it wasn’t pretty. That was saying something coming from a Nightmare, especially one as notorious as the Challenger.
So he remained in that hall, completely unseen by everyone around him, and watched in silent trepidation. Until, something in the periphery of his vision caught his eye. A small form moved near the recycling bins down the hall. In his invisible, undetectable state, Nero turned and slowly strode in that direction. No one saw him move, no one saw him leave. No one knew he was there. The Entity gave him incredible powers. He had to admit that much.
He reached the recycling bins and stared down at the young girl. She was probably pre-teen, with striking red hair and a smattering of freckles. She was focused on the happenings as if she had a personal, vested interest.
Interesting, said the Entity.
Then Nero felt a rush of inquisitive power move through him, and suddenly he knew everything there was to know about the girl. Her name was Melody Margaret Tanniym, known to her friends as Mimi. She was a dragon. She was being trained by none other than the next Dragon King himself, Calidum. And best of all – she was Evangeline’s friend.
Nero knew all about Evangeline. He couldn’t help but know about her because the Entity knew about her. She was working for him. In a way. Evangeline was a difficult individual to pin down, even for the Entity, however. He knew that her lineage was special, but he only knew half of it. He had no idea who her father was, but whoever he’d been, he’d given the young woman intensely strong powers. Such as the ability to heal.
Thank the gods, thought Nero, with a glance at the group down the hall. Nicholas had pulled Adelaide into his lap and was in the process of reining in his Nightmare. He watched as his would-be twin sucked in his magic, so to speak, and reappeared as a human. More or less. Few humans looked like him.
Nero smiled at that thought. Because that meant few humans looked like Nero too.
He waited until the crowd down the hall dispersed and Nicholas and his companions went about their way, most likely off to take care of the teens, teachers, administrators, and possible authorities who were on the scene. It was a lot of memories to wipe and a lot of evidence to destroy. They had the man power for it, though. There was that.
When they were gone, he returned his attention to the girl. The Entity’s power was still boosting his own, and he could hear the girl’s thoughts. She was wondering what to do. Should she make her location known? Or sneak away and hope no one ever found out?
He grinned. He couldn’t help it. “What do we have here?”
Mimi turned around and stood up. The fear and surprise she felt at once registered on her pretty young face. She was noticing that he looked exactly like the king. She took note of his eyes, however, which was to be expected. She was an observant little tike.
She took a cautionary step back from him. “Who are you?” she asked. He could sense her preparing to shift into her dragon form. Clearly, he had her defenses up.
“My name is Nero,” he said as politely as he could, but he could also tell his smile wasn’t working on her. She was smart. “And you must be Mimi,” he added.
She narrowed her gaze at him and took another step back, but ran into the wall behind her. She glanced back at it, before her head whipped back around to face him. She studied him carefully –
so carefully – and suddenly her eyes widened. She’d figured it out. She knew who he was.
She really was smart. Nero was beginning to like the kid. Smart people were so fucking rare.
“You’re the Entity,” she accused.
Sort of, he thought. You’re half right.
Mostly right, said the Entity. Alarm bells began to sound in the back of Nero’s occupied mind.
“I have a message for you,” she told him, lifting her head defiantly. “Eva quits. She doesn’t want to work for you any longer. Turns out you’re not the employer she thought you were.”
Nero went very still. He felt a dark stirring inside him. It was filled with fury, quiet and pent up. “You’re very protective of your friends, aren’t you, Mimi?” He hadn’t even realized he was speaking and certainly hadn’t chosen his own words.
Now Nero was becoming well and truly unsettled. The Entity was taking over, and he wasn’t thinking happy thoughts.
Mimi’s face went pale. He could sense her fear spike, and the incubus in him didn’t like it. He wanted to reassure her. He tried to do so – but the Entity stopped him.
“It would seem everything I’ve heard about you is true, little dragon.” It was no longer him talking.
Mimi swallowed. Nero smiled. Or rather his body did. His soul, on the other hand, began to furiously search for a way out.
Chapter Forty-Six
There was a song by someone in the nineties called “Blood Makes Noise.” Its lyrics talked about the way, when the shit hits the fan, the blood rushes through your ears and you can’t hear anything else. Like when a doctor is telling you that you have cancer. Or a judge is delivering a nasty verdict. Nicholas was familiar with the concept, but he’d never been more under its influence than he was right now.
Nicholas couldn’t hear a goddamned thing. His heart was hammering, and his head was pounding. His body did not want him to do what he was planning to do. But it was their last, best hope. It was Andros’s best hope, Minnaea’s best hope, Adelaide’s. Everyone who mattered.
It was time to end this.
He only prayed he wouldn’t chicken out at the last minute. He needed to remain steadfast and see this through. He needed to put his all into it, or it wouldn’t work.
He reminded himself of this over and over again as the team of them gathered together, and Andros cast up the transport spell. Dannai was there again; it was the Duat, and Amunet was her mother. She needed to be there just in case everything went to hell and mommy woke up. Plus, she was a powerful mage and a werewolf. All the extra muscle, magic or otherwise, they could get was a good thing.
Evangeline was there. He still couldn’t get a fix on her or what she was underneath that beautiful skin, striking eyes, and white hair. But she cared a great deal for the girl who’d been taken. That much was obvious by the state her aura was in at the moment.
Aside from Minnaea, Andros, and Adelaide, the only other person there was Roman D’Angelo. This situation had to do with one of the kings, a king who had yet to officially reclaim his position at the Table of the Thirteen. Roman deserved to be there, but that was where they drew the line now that they knew the Duat didn’t take kindly to living souls crossing its borders.
The portal around them almost groaned, as if it was struggling with its given destination. The colors that swirled around them were brown and tan, the color of sand, and black – the color of darkness. It was wholly unnatural, and Nick had never seen a portal take on that look before. The air in the portal grew dry and smelled like earth.
When the opening appeared, it shrugged slowly, as if pushing against a heavy weight, and Nick had the impression that if they didn’t move through it very quickly, it would close on them, slicing them in two – leaving one half in the Duat, the other in some unknown alternate location.
They must have all had that impression, because almost as one, they crossed the border of the portal and stepped out onto hard, flat stone. The portal instantly shut behind them, snapping closed with the sound of thunder. That, too, it had never done before.
Right away, Nick couldn’t help but wonder if everyone was going to be trapped there on that side of the line between the living and the dead.
The area they’d exited in was massive, and the air echoed through it with a hollow sound. It was all stone, gray and brown, much darker than the environment he’d last witnessed in the Duat. They were standing on a platform that stretched like an outcropping above a massive chasm. Behind them was a solid wall. Ahead of them was a walkway above the chasm no more than a foot wide. It stretched on before them for half a mile, at the least. On either side, it dropped into the dark nothingness that was the place where dead souls ceased to be forever.
Nicholas could see a lone figure on the platform at the opposite end of the narrow bridge, just a small bump in the far distance. He was guessing that was Mimi. Nero was nowhere to be found. At least, that was what it looked like. But now that he thought about it, and given that the Entity was crouching somewhere inside the Challenger like an evil little toad, Nick couldn’t help but wonder if there was a lot more there than was strictly visible. Who knew what powers the Entity was giving Nero? He’d gotten to Mimi, after all. He’d probably been at the school.
That’s it, he thought. This was it. There’s no time better than right here – right now.
He moved to the walkway and stopped just in front of it. Then he looked back over his shoulder at his new queen. Adelaide met his gaze.
Her hair fell in smooth, shimmering waves past her shoulders to her breasts, her cheeks were flushed, her lips were full, and her eyes had amber highlights that hinted at the magic she now had pulsing through her veins. She was stunning in every possible way.
But as she stared up at him, she seemed to suddenly sense the fear he’d been feeling for the last half an hour. She seemed to know, all at once, what was going through his head.
He began to turn back around. Adelaide moved behind him, rushing forward. “Nicholas, no!”
But it was too late.
He was already moving.
Nicholas had only just met Adelaide. However, their souls had been forged from the same Nightmare stuff long ago and sent through time and space to different eras, different places. Somehow they had found one another again.
Nicholas despised fate in that moment.
I love you, he thought, knowing his thoughts to be true. He hoped she could hear him.
Then he jumped. He transformed as he leapt into the air, wings exploding from his back, horns from his head, and fangs piercing his bottom lip. His skin went black as night, and his eyes turned the world into sharp contrasts of black and red.
Once he was high enough, he sent out a pulse of his Nightmare magic. It unwrapped itself from him, a tendril of deep, shimmering black smoke, and whipped down onto the narrow bridge that connected their outcropping to the platform far away.
The dark magic struck the bridge, exploding it into countless fragments of flying rock. Andros moved like lightning, grabbing Adelaide and spinning with her to shield her body with his own. And in that moment of confusion, Nicholas flew away.
He knew that if he wanted to, Roman D’Angelo could follow. The vampire could fly. But he also knew that D’Angelo was not a man to steal another man’s fight. He most likely figured that Nicholas was doing this for a reason. He might not know what the reason is… but he had a feeling Roman was fully aware of the dire depth of his decision.
Behind him, people called out to him. But up ahead, on the platform that was drawing closer, the little dragon girl sat on the ground beside the sarcophagus, her head on her arms, her arms on her knees. She must have heard the commotion, because she looked up and glanced in his direction. When she saw him in the air heading toward her, she jumped to her feet.
“No!” she said at the tops of her lungs. “It’s a trap! Don’t come here!”
But Nicholas already knew it was a trap. He’d known all along. What the little girl didn’t know
as that this particular trap was double-sided.
He landed easily on the platform a few feet away from the red-headed dragon and shifted back into his human form. The girl shook her head at him. “You shouldn’t have come,” she said.
“No. You really shouldn’t have,” came the cold affirmation behind him.
Nicholas closed his eyes. He pulled his power inward, coiling it like a spring. He slowly turned around.
Nero Crowley stood before him. But at once, Nicholas could tell it also wasn’t him at all. Not this time. This time, his aura was pure red, shot through with streaks of black lightning like a volcano storm. He was all fury.
All hatred.
This was not Nero. This was the Entity.
Chapter Forty-Seven
Andros let Addie go and stepped back. Adelaide turned to the site of the destruction and took in the rubble that remained of the first fifteen feet of the narrow bridge.
Her eyes felt like they would pop out of her head. She couldn’t believe what she was seeing, what she’d felt coming off of Nicholas just before he’d jumped and destroyed the bridge. It had been fear. Resignation. And regret.
And she’d known at once what he was planning.
He’d told her that Nightmares possessed the ability to pull souls into themselves. They had this ability in order to bring sweet, painless relief to those souls trapped in bodies that caused them great suffering. It was a part of what a Nightmare was – an incubus. Incubi needed to bring people pleasure, and according to anyone who had ever suffered greatly, there was no greater pleasure than the cessation of pain.
Nicholas was planning to use this ability. The difference this time was that he wasn’t going to use it to bring someone pleasure. He was going to use it to trap the Entity inside his body… and then destroy himself.
Addie’s eyes moved to the chasm on either side of the destroyed bridge. It dropped off into deep, unfathomable nothingness, just as Rachel’s vision had predicted. And she knew it was an eternal nothingness, not just a fall off a steep cliff. This was the edge of the Duat, a place so filled with nothing, it caused anything and anyone inside it to cease to exist. Living or dead. Gone forever.