Instinct

  So long as there was breath in his body, there was life. So long as there was life, there was hope. And so long as there was hope, there was the possibility of victory.

  Life wasn't about just getting by. It was about getting through, no matter what, and making the most of every minute.

  A chill went down his spine as he remembered what his father had said to him. The Malachai will never be forgotten. But it's entirely up to you as to how you'll be remembered.

  Nick Gautier would not be remembered as a coward or a villain. He was going out a hero and a champion.

  And he would not go down without a vicious, vicious fight.

  As he started after Zavid, his phone rang. It was Kody. He answered immediately. "Hey, cher. What's up?"

  "Where are you?"

  "Outside Caleb's. Why? What'cha need?"

  "You. Fast as possible. There's something here and it's after your mother."

  CHAPTER 8

  The instant Nick appeared in his living room, he was violently lifted off his feet and slammed so hard onto the wood floor that it knocked the breath out of him. Flat on his back, he moaned out loud while his ears rang violently. Ah, dang, it hurt! All he could do was choke and wheeze. It felt like he'd been mowed down by an eighteen-wheeler traveling faster than the speed of sound.

  Or tackled by Bubba for prematurely interrupting an episode of Oprah.

  Someone, grab me an inhaler and shove it in my mouth. Yeah, okay, he wasn't asthmatic, but he was willing to learn and at this point, he definitely felt that bronchial burn.

  "Oh no! Akri-Nicky! You okay? The Simi didn't know it was her favorite blue-eyed demon boy when she hit him so hard so as to protect his precious akra-mama. Oh no!" Simi leaned over him with her red-and-black pigtails framing her adorable face as she slapped at his cheeks to revive him. "You still living and breathing and not broken? 'Cause if you not, can the Simi eat your dead, meaty remains? Please, please, please? Maybe some of them bones, too, 'cause the marrow can be quite tasty in its own right."

  Now, to a normal person, that might seem like an odd request. But to those a little behind on the schematics, there really wasn't anything normal about Nick's life or those in it. Being a Charonte demon, Simi had a fondness for human meat, but luckily for humanity, she wasn't allowed to chow down on it without express permission of either the donor or her father. Which her main akri tended not to give her.

  Thank goodness for that.

  Nick stared up into her bright, friendly eyes. For all her bloodthirsty cravings, she was quite adorable, and loyal to a scary fault. Like a fluffy killer attack bunny.

  Dressed in a short black-and-white skull tank dress, she wore a rose-lace hoodie over it. Her red-and-black-striped leggings matched her hair and she had on a pair of black and red floral Doc Martens.

  "Sadly for you, I think I'm going to live, Simi," he choked out with a wheeze. "You can stop slapping me now. I've already lost enough sense. Can't afford to lose any more brain cells. I really really need my last three before I forget how to spell my name. It's hard enough to pronounce."

  "Well, poo." She sat back with an adorable pout. "Not poo that you'll live, 'cause the Simi would probably miss you if you died, but poo that I'll miss all that good old salty boy meat." She poked at his ribs. "Though we needs be fattening you up some to make you really good eats. Hmmm." She licked her lips as if imagining what he'd taste like basted in barbecue sauce--Simi's prime condiment of choice.

  Yeah. Okay. Not wanting to think about that, Nick pushed himself up to face Xev with a grimace. "Y'all could have warned me about the attack Simi you had on door duty."

  Xev shrugged nonchalantly. "I wasn't completely sure it was you. Besides, she was a lot more gentle in her attack on you than I'd have been." He swept a bitterly amused glance over Nick's body. "With her, you're still in one piece. So stop whining like a baby before I have Simi burp you."

  Crossing his arms over his chest, Xev inclined his head toward the bedroom. "Kody's with your mother, who's unconscious for some unknown reason. No matter what we try, we can't seem to get Cherise to wake up again."

  "Could it be Tiamat? I saw her just before I came here."

  Xev went so still that for a moment, Nick thought everything had frozen again.

  Until Xev blinked ever so slowly. "Nyria?"

  Her features completely ashen, Kody came out of the room. "What did you call me?"

  He ignored her question. "Tiamat is free."

  The color drained from her face, too. "What?" She looked to Nick for confirmation. "Are you sure?"

  Nick nodded. "She was at Caleb's. She thought I'd summoned her."

  "Did you?"

  Should he be offended by the way she asked that? A part of him thought so, given that only an outright moron would do something that stupid. And while he'd been known to pull some award-winning acts of dumb, he'd never been quite that asleep at the wheel.

  At least, not yet, that he knew of.

  "I don't make it a habit of summoning gods I don't know, no offense. Especially not one I've never heard of before. I don't even play those video games after what happened with Madaug. How slow on the uptake do I look, and don't answer that. I have a very fragile male ego where you're concerned." Nick scowled as Xev carried his unconscious mother out of the bedroom and placed her on the couch, between them. "What are you doing, champ?"

  "I am not letting her out of our sight. I will not be blamed for her harm, and I will allow no harm to come to her while she's in my custody." Xev placed a small round pillow beneath her head, then covered her with the pink crocheted blanket she kept tossed over the back of the couch, and took up a post at her feet, facing her with his right hand on her leg.

  Okie-dokie, he was just a little paranoid.

  And in that moment, the full weight of Xev's true trauma hit Nick. The ancient ex-god was in the middle of an all-out panic attack. A bad one, too, by the looks of it. Kind of like Nick whenever his chemistry teacher sprang a pop quiz on him at school.

  "Xev?"

  He didn't hear him. His breathing labored, he wasn't really with them. Instead, he appeared to be in a waking nightmare of some kind.

  Nick exchanged a concerned look with Kody before he closed the distance between him and Xev. "Xevikan!" Still, he didn't respond as he kept looking around as if seeking an unseen attacker.

  Or several thousand of them.

  Pulling Xev's hand from his mother's leg, Nick forced him to take a step back. "Daraxerxes!" Gah, he hoped he pronounced that name right.

  Only then did Xev focus on Nick's face. But he still wasn't completely recovered.

  "They're coming." His voice was firm and intense. "We have to secure the children and women. They'll hit where we're weakest. You stay here with the others. I have to get to Lil and warn her. She'll be their first target. If they reach her first, they can neutralize Caleb's forces and crash the gates."

  Nick winced at the anguish in his voice. Lil would have been Caleb's wife. Lilliana. The one Caleb blamed Xev for allowing to die. But from those words and the way Xev was acting, it didn't sound like Xev had betrayed him and led the enemies inside the gate to take them out. More like he'd done his best to keep her safe.

  "Xevikan!" he tried again.

  Flinching, Xev turned as one of the symbols on the wall lit up. Recognition widened his eyes before they darkened with the bitterest hatred. He hissed like a cat and backed away from it.

  Kody approached him slowly. "Xev?" Gingerly, she touched his chest. "Are you with us?"

  His breathing still labored, he covered her hand with his and held it as if she were as precious to him as she was to Nick. A tic started in his jaw before he gave a slow nod. "You feel that?"

  "Feel what?" Kody asked.

  He looked to Simi. "Charonte?"

  "Cursed god?" she shot back in irritation.

  Xev rolled his eyes before he went to the door to take a defensive position behind the hinges. He manifested fireballs around his hands as
someone knocked on it.

  Nick scowled. "You know, X, from my experience, the bad guys don't usually knock."

  A snide smile curved his lips. "They do when their brand of evil has to be invited in in order to enter."

  And now his gut was back to producing diamonds. Xev had a very valid point with that. There were Daimons and certain other entities who definitely required specific invitations into domiciles to wreak havoc and harm. Nick really wished he lived a life where he didn't have to know that.

  Great. Just great. More nightmares to worry about.

  Hoping for the best, Nick went to the peephole to glance out, then passed a droll stare to Xev. "Put away your paranoia. It's just my godmother. No doubt, the police contacted her about the attack on my mom, and she wanted to check on us. She's barely five feet tall, and ninety pounds soaking wet. I don't think we have anything to fear. And she's probably terrified. Last thing she needs is for you to give her a heart attack."

  Unlocking the door, he opened it and pulled the tiny Creole midwife who'd helped bring him into the world into his arms for a tight hug. "Hey, Aunt Mennie."

  She squeezed him back while her sisterlocks tickled his nose. "Hey, Boo. I hope you don't mind. But given all the weirdness I wanted to come by and check on you and your..." Her voice trailed off as her gaze went past his shoulder to Xev. Instantly bug-eyed, she gasped audibly.

  Not thinking anything about her reaction, since most people tended to greet Xev like a cross between a leper and Bigfoot's bigger and nastier older brother who was jacked up on steroids, Nick shut the door. "Menyara, this is--"

  "We know each other, don't we, Cam?" Xev's voice was so cold, they could have used it to flash-freeze helium popsicles on the Pontchartrain Bridge in August.

  Menyara staggered back and would have fallen had Nick not been there to catch her.

  "Mennie? Are you all right?"

  "What have you done, Nick?" she breathed in a horrified tone as she continued to stare at Xev as if he was the devil incarnate. "What have you done?" she repeated.

  Xev glared at her. "Interesting that you would blame him, when this all started with you and your siblings."

  Shaking her head, Menyara dragged her gaze to each of them in turn--Xev, Simi, Kody, Cherise, and Nick--before she closed her eyes. "Who unlocked Nick's powers? For the love of the Source, why would you do such a thing? Have you any idea what you've done?"

  Sheepish, Kody bit her lip before she explained their actions. "We had no choice. Nick's ousia had been split from his body by his enemies who wanted to weaken him enough to kill him. It was the only way to save him and return him to this dimension and save his life. Had we not moved fast, he'd be dead now."

  Menyara let out a weary sigh as she sat down on the armchair and hung her head in her hands. "You should have come to me before you acted."

  "I tried. I really did." Kody started forward, but Xev stopped her.

  When he spoke again, his tone was like that of a patient parent to a beloved child. "This isn't on you, little one. This started long before you were sent here to kill Nick. Long before you were recruited to your cause. Don't let her put her sins on your innocent shoulders."

  His eyes flashing bright red, Xev curled a furious lip as he neared Menyara. "How could you do such a thing to them? Have you learned nothing over the centuries about tampering with human fate and free will? About playing with lives when you should leave well enough alone?"

  Looking up, Menyara met his gaze without flinching. "We had no choice. You've no idea how powerful Adarian had grown. How incredibly dangerous he was to everyone and everything he came into contact with."

  "And whose fault was that?"

  She ignored his question. "We couldn't control him anymore. He'd been unleashed on this world. An unstoppable monster. We had no other way of even finding him. Everything we tried, failed. He was becoming such a threat that at any moment, he could have come for us and won. Torn out our throats and laughed about it as he drank our blood from his own fists. It was our only hope of fighting him. The only way we could think to even slow him down long enough to put him back in chains."

  "By making his powers stronger? Who thought that was a good idea?"

  "It was meant to negate his powers."

  Xev scoffed angrily. "You had no right to involve an innocent life without telling her what you were doing! Without asking her permission!" He paced the floor like a caged beast looking for a way to attack its taunter, who in this case appeared to be Menyara.

  "We had every right to do whatever it took to protect all the innocents of this world. One sacrifice for millions of others. It was an equitable exchange."

  Still, Xev denied her logic and clung to his steadfast argument. "It wasn't your place to make that call."

  She ignored his fury. "Mankind couldn't stand against the usumgallu centuries ago when they knew about them and were prepared to fight them. Now ... they're completely helpless against the Malachai and his allies. They don't even know of them. Never mind raise an army to fight him, or use magic and the elements to bind him! What would you have had us do? Stand aside and watch all of you mow the humans down for your sick pleasure?"

  Slack-jawed, Xev froze in response to her question as if he'd just realized something. His breathing labored, he met Menyara's furious glower. "Her father isn't Verlyn. He can't be. I would have sensed it instantly were we siblings."

  "No. Azura keeps him sterile for fear he will father a child who can kill or enslave her."

  "Rezar?"

  "Has been missing for centuries. No one knows what happened to him."

  Absolute horror washed over his face as he turned toward Nick. He looked at him as if he'd never seen him before. As if he was looking at him through new eyes.

  His gaze fell to Nick's mother and for a moment, Nick thought Xev might actually kill Menyara.

  Or toss his cookies.

  "You chose a warrior of light for the task." It was a flat, whispered statement, not a question.

  "There was no one else. We needed a father born directly from the Kalosum Source powers. He was the closest to them who could still father a daughter for the cause."

  Biting his lip, Xev winced. "They're people, not disposable pawns for your selfish games, Cam."

  She glared at him. "No one knows that better than I. Everything I've ever done was for the protection of others. For the protection and benefit, and my love of this world, and all those who dwell in it. I was the one who stayed here in this hole, to watch over and protect. To be here every step of the way. For them all."

  And still Xev's gaze condemned her for her actions. "Does he even know he's a father?"

  "Of course not. It would have been a disaster on multiple levels had he ever learned the truth. His daughter was conceived, delivered, and raised under the guise of a completely normal, orphaned human, and appears so to all. No one has ever suspected that she is more than she seems. She never even knew she was an adopted orphan. For all she knows, her adoptive parents are the ones who birthed her."

  Xev laughed bitterly. "And yet you did it without his knowledge or consent. You broke every supreme law we once lived by. Used him and her mother. Did the mother ever know? Did any of them?"

  "No. We couldn't afford for them to have any idea. They could have tipped off Adarian if they had. The mother met him one time ... in a bar, and took him home. As far as she knew, he was a human, just passing through her town for the night."

  He cursed her under his breath. "How very typical of you all. You put them in the line of fire without warning or defense. Without full knowledge or understanding. How could you?"

  Nick whistled, interrupting them. "Hello? Who here has the faintest clue what they're talking about?"

  Not even Simi held her hand up, which said it all. Simi usually knew everything.

  But for once, she simply shrugged.

  Nick turned his attention back to the only two who did.

  Menyara and Xev.

  "
All right. In that case, could one of you catch the room up? Please? Especially since this seems to be my life and family you're discussing? And I have a really bad feeling about this?"

  "You should." Xev crossed his arms over his chest as he continued to glare at Menyara. "Your conception and birth were no accident, Nick. Your entire existence was a trap set for your father."

  That had better be a joke. "Excuse me?"

  Nodding slowly, Xev turned to face him. "It's what makes you so powerful and dangerous, and sets you apart from all the Malachais who've come before you. You're not just born of the Mavromino. Like the very first Malachai who started this, you, too, through your mother, carry the blood of a Sephiroth warrior."

  Those words hit Nick like a fist to his gut. "Excuse me?"

  Kody sucked her breath in audibly as Simi gaped so wide, she exposed her fangs.

  "It's what gives us hope for him." Menyara stood to face Nick. Wringing her hands, she swallowed hard. "But it wasn't supposed to happen like it did. None of it."

  Fret knitted her brow as Menyara tried to explain it to them. "You have to understand, child. We never meant to hurt you or your mother. That wasn't our intent. We only meant to curb Adarian's powers. To leash his anger and fulfill a prophecy that was given to us long ago."

  Stunned breathless, Nick exchanged a frown with Simi as he took Kody's hand. Just knowing she was there kept him anchored and grounded as he struggled to come to terms with what Menyara was trying to tell him. Part of him had always suspected this truth, but the other part was angry and hurt. "I'm so confused."

  "The Simi bewildered, too. I done gots lost around the block a whiles ago."

  Xev laughed bitterly as he spread his arms out and braced his hands on the couch to lean against it. His eyes turned a bright, flaming red as they blazed hot with his own anger and hatred. "It's what they've done to us since the dawn of time, Nick. We who are born of darkness are creatures of great power. Tiamat. Braith. Caleb. Me. You. Your father. The list goes on infinitas. It is hatred, pain, bitterness, and rage that feeds our strength. Adversity is the stone on which we hone our swords for battle. What breaks lesser beings and sends them sniveling to their graves fuels us to victory. The cruelty of others doesn't faze us even a little. It's all we know. It is why we are invincible. Why they," he jerked his chin toward Menyara, "can't stand toe-to-toe in battle with us. And they know it. So they break us with the one thing we have no defense against." His gaze went to Kody and then to their locked hands.