Page 18 of Inferno (Chronicles of Nick 4)
All right. Everything he needed to fully embarrass himself. Cool beans.
This too shall pass.…
And unfortunately, he would live through it.
With a sigh of dread, Nick closed his eyes so that he wouldn’t have to see their horrified faces, and searched his memory for something he could play that wouldn’t be too mortifying for any of them.
All of a sudden, in the back of his mind, he heard the sound of crashing thunder, then a freaky laugh, and someone saying wipe out.…
The next thing he knew, he was playing the song. No, not playing …
He was owning it. Without missing a single beat …
What the heck? How could he do this? He’d never really played this song before. Only heard it a few times on the radio. Yet his body went through the movements and notes as if he’d played it a thousand times.
Alex came to his feet with a cheerful whoop, then reached for his guitar and joined in with the riff.
Yeah, okay, not to sound egotistical, but it was pretty epic. Nick smiled as he tasted real pride for the first time in his life. And when Duff joined in and started jamming with them, he really felt like something other than a stone-cold loser.
Even Madaug’s little brother Ian came outside to listen to them play. Though why Ian was dressed as a box was anyone’s guess.…
But at least the little box liked Nick’s music. For that alone, he might be willing to adopt a younger brother the next time Madaug tried to give Ian away.
Two minutes later, Nick finished with a flourish. Ian jumped up and down, cheering along with Casey. At least until he lost one box arm that he had to quickly pick up and attempt to reattach.
Nick wasn’t sure who was more surprised by his lack of suckage. The guys or him.
Duff tucked his pick into the strings on the neck of his bass. “You’re good, Gautier. Real good.”
Coming from his surly personality, that had to be a giant compliment. “Thanks, Duff.”
Duff inclined his head to him, then set his bass aside.
“Well?” Alex asked the group.
“He’s got my vote,” Eric said.
Marlon nodded. “Definitely fine by me.” A slow smile broke across his face. “In more ways than one.”
Alex beamed. “Then it looks like we have a band. All we need now is a name.”
“Pokemon Live!” Ian shouted.
Eric curled his lips at his brother. “We’re not across the river, Ian. Go inside and leave us alone.”
Ian glared at him. “I hope Madaug turns you into a zombie again, you freak, and this time the principal eats you!”
Eric took a step toward him. Ian let out a yelp and jack-rabbited for the house, shedding pieces of his box costume in his wake.
With a sound of disgust, Eric shook his head. “I knew I should have traded him for a sister when I was a kid.”
Ignoring Eric’s family drama, Duff leaned forward on his chair to put his elbows on his knees. “What about Vexed?”
Eric shook his head. “We don’t want a name people will have to look up to understand.”
“Vexed?” Duff asked in a disgusted tone. “Really?”
“Hey, have you met the average student at our schools?” Eric asked.
Duff backed down. “Point well taken. Vexed is out.”
Casey exchanged a frown with Nick, who had absolutely no idea what to name the group.
Eric tapped his long black nails on the speaker in front of him. “What about Five Angry Guys?”
When the others started to agree, Nick spoke up fast. “Uh, no. Never.”
Duff frowned. “Why not? I like it.”
“Yeah, me, too,” Alex said.
Nick held up his hands. “Fine, but when people shorten it, and they will, we’ll be known as F-A-G.”
Eric, Alex, and Duff were mortified by the acronym.
Marlon laughed. “Oh, I like it even more.”
The other members exchanged uncomfortable grimaces.
“Oh c’mon, y’all,” Marlon said, still pressing for it. “We’ll be like Queen, with Freddie Mercury.”
Nick draped his arm around Marlon’s shoulders. “While that will help you with your dance card, Marls, it will leave the four of us relegated to tundra status at school. Please have mercy on us. We beg you.”
He sighed wearily. “Fine. But we could change it to Five Angry Men. ’Course I’m not angry, but I’m willing to learn.”
Nick laughed as Alex chimed in with approval.
Duff nodded.
“Five Angry Men, it is.” Eric went to clap Duff on the back.
“Don’t touch me!” he growled like the panther he was.
Eric jumped back.
Casey leaned against Nick and smiled at him. “Told you you could play the drums.”
Something in her tone set his inner warning system off. “How did you know?”
She shrugged. “You look like a drummer.”
He also looked like an idiot in the tacky shirts his mother insisted he wear, but that was definitely untrue.
He hoped.
Suddenly suspicious of her, Nick handed the sticks to Alex, who refused to take them back.
“Keep them. We’re going to be practicing here in Eric’s garage three nights a week. If you want extra time, you can use Damien’s practice kit in the club room at Sanctuary. The Howlers usually practice really late at night or early in the morning. So the kit should be free for your use during after-school hours.”
Nick was touched by Alex’s generosity. But then that was one thing about the bears, they were all kindhearted and had been stone-cold decent to him and his mom.
“When’s the first practice?” Nick asked.
Alex zipped his guitar into a black gig bag. “Day after tomorrow. Four to six.”
Nick sucked his breath in sharply. “That conflicts with football.”
Alex considered it for a minute, then looked over to the others. “Can we do seven to nine?”
Duff shrugged. “I don’t care.”
“Fine with my schedule,” Marlon said.
Eric nodded. “Tabby might be a little nuts since it’ll cut into her vampire stalking time, but that shouldn’t be too big a deal. She prefers I play in a band, anyway.”
Nick had to bite back a laugh about that. He’d met Eric’s girlfriend, Tabitha Devereaux, before he’d met Eric. While she was sexy on a level unto herself, she was a bit touched in the head.
“Seven it is,” Alex said, dragging Nick’s thoughts back to them. “We’ll see you then.”
“All right.”
Casey wrapped herself around him and walked him back toward her car. She beamed at him the whole way. “How do you feel, Nick?”
He hated to admit it, but … “Unbelievably good about myself. Thank you for making me do this.”
“No problem. Sometimes we don’t know what our talents are until we try.”
Maybe. Still, he would never have listed this on his résumé. Of course, he was sure it was his powers that gave him this ability. Like the answer in chem class …
He was growing stronger every day.
“I’m in a band,” he breathed, unable to believe it. He’d always wanted to be in one. The dream had been so strong that he’d never really spoken about it to his mom. Mostly because he didn’t want to upset her over the fact that they couldn’t afford it.
Now that they could …
He was going to rock the house down, and use his powers for something other than evil.
* * *
Inside Artemis’s temple on Mount Olympus, Ambrose stumbled as a fierce pain ripped through his skull. It was a familiar agony he’d learned all too well these last few years.
Nick had changed something in their past that had affected their future.
Closing his eyes, he tried to see what it was that had altered. But before he could, another wave of misery consumed him. And this one drove him to his knees.
“What are you doing, Nick?” he breathed, trying to push the pain away enough so that he could focus.
It was useless. The agony pulled him under and refused to let him go.
“Ambrose?”
He winced at Artemis’s voice that resonated inside his aching skull.
She knelt beside him, then gasped. “Your nose is bleeding.”
That he already knew since he could taste it. She cupped his face in her hands.
“I’m all right, Artie.”
Artemis shook her head in denial. “You don’t appear to be all right. You look rather sick and pale.”
Worse, he was shaking. “I need blood.”
She pulled the curly red hair back from her neck in an open invitation. The sight of her alabaster skin made him salivate. But her blood wasn’t what he needed right now.
“The demon’s blood.”
Color faded from her cheeks. “You’re almost out. You told me not to let you use it anymore.”
“I have no choice. Something’s wrong.” He panted as he felt his powers grow even stronger. More fierce. His skin began to turn from tawny to the red and black swirling skin of the Malachai.
Artemis shrank back from him.
Ambrose wrestled with the demon that was kicking inside him, demanding release. Growling, he fought for control with everything he had. But it wasn’t easy. The beast was so much more than it’d been.
What have you done, boy?
His memories were shifting and rearranging so fast that it left him sick to his stomach.
For a moment, he saw his mother on that fateful night when she’d been killed, and thought that maybe, just maybe, this time they had saved her. But it was a false hope. Artemis’s bow-and-arrow mark was still on his face and his mother remained dead.
Yet the most frightening realization came a second later. Instead of them pushing the Malachai into eternal submission, Nick had just released him.
Ambrose felt his humanity leave as his vision turned from human to the red haze of rage. He no longer cared about anyone or anything. All he could taste was blood. All he could feel was hate. Enough with humanity and their disease. It was time for them to yield their world to their masters.…
He rose to his feet as his wings unfurled.
Artemis screamed.
Laughing, he lunged for her.
CHAPTER 9
Nick barely recognized himself as he stared into the full-length store mirror in front of him. Casey had all but strong-armed him into a frou-frou salon that smelled way too much like perfume to get his hair cut, and then forced him into Saks Fifth Avenue to shop for something less hideous to wear. All his life, he’d walked past the Shops at Canal Place and wondered what it’d be like to have enough money to shop here.
His first excursion had been a few months ago when he’d bought a shirt for Kyrian’s birthday. As strange as it sounded, it hadn’t occurred to him to buy clothes for himself.
Now …
He grinned at the sight of the expensive black pants, belt, and black silk shirt he wore. Yeah, this was definitely the life. “I make this look good.”
Casey laughed. “I love it when you flash those dimples at me.”
That landed like a punch to his nose. Nick stopped smiling immediately, and cleared his throat.
She tsked at him. “How on earth did I upset you by complimenting you?”
“I hate my dimples,” he said in a low but emphatic tone. “They’re girly.”
She made a loud sound of total disagreement. “They are not. They’re girl magnets, maybe, but definitely not girly. Why would you think that?”
He wiped at his cheeks where the dimples were hiding, wishing he could remove them forever. “There was a woman in church when I was a kid who always said I smiled so pretty that I should have been born a girl. It wouldn’t have been so bad had I not always had a feeling that my mother would’ve preferred a daughter over me.”
She appeared aghast at the comment. “How can you possibly think that?”
Nick shrugged as he remembered the unguarded expressions on his mother’s face when he caught her wistfully touching tiny ruffled dresses in stores, or the way her longing gaze would follow after little girls with their mothers. But he didn’t want to share that with Casey. “I don’t know.”
“Has she ever said that to you?”
She’d made jokes about it from time to time. And he didn’t want to admit it out loud either. “Nah, I guess not.”
Casey leaned up against his back and wrapped her arms around his waist. She smiled at him in the mirror. “Trust me, Nick. You look hot in this. Completely edible.”
That caused his right eyebrow to shoot up all on its own as heat scorched his cheeks and his thoughts burned with images he was still too young to have in his head. They made him even more uncomfortable than being in an expensive store where he felt like a fraud, and kept waiting for the security guard to come throw him out.
“So what do you think?” the clerk asked as he joined them.
“He’ll take it,” Casey said before Nick had a chance to speak.
Nick hesitated, knowing his mother would never approve of an all-black outfit. She’d have all manner of fits.
