Page 31 of Inferno (Chronicles of Nick 4)
Nor did he think he’d want to kill Kody the way he did right now as he rolled his eyes at her salmon-colored house with dark green panels that was a long cottage style similar to quite a few others in town.
“Really, Kody? C’mon. You’ve got to be kidding me.”
The problem? Because of past tax laws, many of the homes in New Orleans were narrow in front and long down the back. They were termed shotguns because you could literally open the front door and shoot a straight line through them to the back door without hitting a wall. The other big historical tax had been on front windows. So the crafty citizens who refused to be taxed on something so ridiculous had decided to put doors along the front of the homes instead.
Kody’s little fortress had four of them and not a single window in it. Worse, all four “doors” were bolted shut and had the same small stone stoop under them. There was no way of knowing which one was the door and which ones were windows. It was like playing a bad game of Let’s Make a Deal, or the lady and the tiger.
I ain’t got time for this crap.
Caleb curled his lip. “All right, Monty. Let’s see what’s behind door number two.” Growling in frustration, he pounded on it.
Door number four opened a few seconds later to show him one ticked-off Kody. “What are you doing here?”
“Getting seriously pissed off.”
“Well, you can do that somewhere else. I suggest over at 809 Bourbon.” She moved to close the door.
Ignoring the fact she’d just told him to go back to Nick’s, Caleb flashed to the door and blocked it before she could slam it on him.
Her green eyes blazed with indignant fury. “Desperate to lose an arm, are we?”
“No. Desperate to save Nick’s life.”
She paled instantly as the furious light in her gaze turned to concern. “What’s wrong?”
“In case you can’t tell by the bloody bruises on me, he was attacked, and now both he and his mother are missing.”
She opened the door and let him into her quaint house that was way too ornate, pink, and feminine for his personal taste. “Elaborate.”
Caleb set his bag down on her lace-covered end table. “Adarian summoned me earlier to let me know that he was dying.”
“Nick’s killing him?” That would be the obvious question. Too bad nothing with Nick ever went the way it was supposed to.
Caleb shook his head. “Adarian didn’t know who had weakened him and I still don’t. The plan was for me to get Nick to Adarian so he could kill him and then to lock down Adarian’s powers until Nick’s ready for them.”
She gestured toward his bag. “That explains your groceries.”
“Yeah, and while I was getting them a short time ago, we were violently attacked.”
“So I heard and saw.”
“And you didn’t think to come help?”
“I was told I wasn’t welcomed or allowed. I figured if I went, either you or Nick would blame me for it.”
He hated to admit that she was right.
“Anyway,” he said, continuing. “As we were heading back to Nick’s we heard on the police radio that Adarian had escaped jail, but he was too weak to do that. The demon could barely blink when I left him. So I’m thinking that whoever it was who got him out has kidnapped all three of them and is planning on becoming the next Malachai.”
Kody screwed her face up in distaste. “I just got wicked indigestion.”
“Good, ’cause I’ve had it all night. Can you locate Nick?”
“All I can do is try.”
* * *
Nick came awake to find himself facedown in a small cage inside what had to be the coldest cave on the planet. Shivering, he blew air into his hands to warm them, but all it did was form a cloud that quickly dissipated and left him even colder than before.
Am I still alive?
He wasn’t sure. This place definitely wasn’t heaven, and if hell was this cold, he had a major beef to make with his priests on their misinformation.
But that at least made him remember his latest power that could really come in handy in this barren hole. Closing his eyes, he summoned the fire. His hands instantly lit up.
Oh yeah, much better.
Until it ignited high and almost set his head on fire. Great, just what he needed. Singed-off Terminator-style eyebrows. That would get him an awesome prom date … never. Cursing, Nick shook his hands until they went out, then tried again.
This time, he managed a little better control over the size of the flame. Lifting his hand so that he could see more details about his prison, he scanned the empty ice cave. His cage was in a corner and there was nothing except crystalized stalactites and stalagmites all around him. Something about it reminded him of a video game. Maybe because it looked like a really good place to get bodied.
Was this one of the Antarctic demon realms Acheron had told him about? That would definitely explain the biting cold and the nasty smell that made his stomach knot in disgust.
Off in the distance, he could hear dogs barking and wolves howling. Or maybe it was wolves barking, too.
Did they do that?
He wasn’t sure.
And speaking of, he heard the low rumble of a deep growl on his right. Whatever it was making that noise sounded massively huge. Nick scooted back in the cage, hoping whatever it was, it couldn’t bite through steel and that it kept walking past his area.
After a few seconds, the beast entered through a small opening in front of the cave. Black as the darkness around them, it was a giant wolf. And the moment it turned to look at him and Nick saw its luminescent purple eyes, he realized it was the same one that had attacked Caleb.
Oh, this can’t be good.…
Limping and bleeding, it approached his cage so that the beast could sniff it. Worried about Caleb, Nick bit his lip. While it appeared Caleb took a chunk out of the wolf, the fact that it was here and alive, and Caleb wasn’t, didn’t bode well for his friend.
It bared its bloodied, sharp teeth, then growled and snarled at Nick as if trying to reach him through the bars.
“Get back!” A loud whip cracked across the wolf’s back, causing it to recoil and howl, then snap at the leather cord. “Back, I said!” Two more lashes landed on it before the wolf backed down and limped over to a steel post that was embedded into the cavern wall.
Nick stared at the trail of smeared blood staining the ice in the wolf’s wake. He’d feel bad for the creature had it not eaten Caleb.
At least that was his thought until the wolf collapsed and then turned into a guy who didn’t look all that much older than him. He had thick, wavy dark hair that fell to his shoulders and a couple days’ growth of beard. Completely nak*d, he lay with his back to Nick. Scars marred almost every inch of him. Most were from a whip, but many others were bite marks, knife wounds and bullets.
Ignoring Nick and his cage, the woman who’d beat the wolf down approached the wolf slowly as if expecting him to get up and attack her. When she was almost within arm’s reach, she transformed her whip into a long, bladed staff. A blade she used so that she could poke him. She even went so far as to lift his face up with it.
He didn’t move.
Finally satisfied that he wasn’t playing opossum, she raised her hand toward the post. A chain materialized and then crawled over the ice to the man and looped itself around his neck to keep him there.
Only then did she turn to face Nick.
His breath caught in his throat. Around his mother’s age, she was exquisite and ethereal. Long, white-blond hair fanned over a body that should be gracing magazines that would have him grounded for life if his mom ever caught him reading them. But from the waist down, she had the legs of a rotting corpse. One that came complete with the smell of the back end of an unwashed yak.
“So you are the Malachai.…” She sounded disappointed.
Good. Maybe she’d let him go. “Who are you?”
“Hel.”
Not quite afraid of her, but rather apprehensive, he arched a brow. “Isn’t it a little cold to be hell?”
She laughed at that. “Not your hell, moron. I am the goddess Hel and this is my realm, Helheim.”
Helheim he knew from playing Dungeons and Dragons with Madaug and his friends. Hel … he’d never heard of before. But Madaug would probably be able to recite an entire dissertation on her, her family, and any insect she’d ever met. Even better, Madaug would most likely know what, if any, weakness she had. Remind me to never make fun of him again for his bank of useless information.
Nick stood up to face her. “Why am I here and what have you done with my mother?”
“I know nothing of your mother. I care nothing about your mother. Just as I care nothing for you. You are only a means to an end for me. And as soon as I get what I want, I don’t care what they do to you.”
He threw one of his fireballs at her.
She stopped it with a blast of ice that shattered it midair. “Instead of attacking me, boy, you should be grateful.”
“Grateful for being locked in a cage?”
“Grateful you’re alive. According to my hound, you were almost dead when he pulled the harvester off you.”
Nick’s pulse quickened. Finally someone who knew what one was.… Though to be honest, he’d have rather found the definition online. “Harvester?”
“Soul-eaters. They are sent to destroy anyone who is born of evil.” She walked a small circle around his cage. “Hard to believe something as puny as you is worth the life of a captive god.”
Before he could respond to that, she vanished.
“I’m not puny!” Nick shouted after her. While he might be thin and gangly, he was over six feet tall. Not puny by any standards.…
Much.
Sitting down, he turned his attention to the passed-out wolf, who was still bleeding all over the place. So the thing that ate his best friend had saved his life.… Nick wasn’t sure what to think about that.
Not that he really cared. While he didn’t like the thought of Caleb being hurt or dead, the one thought that scared him the most was his mother. What had happened to her?
Maybe Kyrian had made it in time and was now keeping her safe. It was his only hope, and he intended to latch on to it with both hands.
And his teeth.
* * *
Hours went by as Nick tried every power he could to escape his cage. Nothing worked. As usual, the universe mocked his attempts with a dose of ineptitude that made him wonder why the heck he kept trying when he should just lie down and think of p**n princesses like a normal teenage boy.
Dang you, Caleb, for your twisted pep talks. They kept him going even when it was stupid.
Frustrated, he fire-blasted the door again with both hands. The flames hit it, then rebounded back and singed both the hair on his head and that on his arms.
Beautiful. I smell like a burned sewer rat.
Hey, Casey, want to go eat dinner with me now?
“You’re wasting your time.”
Nick jumped at the deep, heavily accented voice. Turning, he saw that the wolf was awake and staring at him with those luminescent purple eyes.
“I thought you were dead.”
Ignoring Nick’s comment, the wolf lifted up a corner of the thick, warm blue blanket that covered him. “You?”
“Yeah, I was going blind from the sight of your nak*d hairy butt.”
One corner of his mouth twitched as if he started to smile then caught himself. “And the pillow?”
Now it was Nick’s turn not to comment. No need in letting him know that even though he’d most likely eaten Caleb, Nick had felt sorry for him. Not to mention, the wolf was really lucky Nick’s powers had worked and not turned him into a goat or something.
But now that the wolf was awake, there was one question Nick was desperate to have an answer for. “Did you kill Caleb?”
“The daeve you were with?”
“Yeah.”
“He lives.”
Nick’s relief came out as a sharp burst of breath. He hadn’t realized just how upset he’d been at the thought of Caleb dying while protecting him until just this second. “Looks like he got a pretty good chunk of you.”
The wolf glanced away, then ran his hand through his dark, wavy hair. He grimaced as he saw the blood on his hand from an injury he must have had on his head. To his credit, he was handling the pain really well.
“I’m Nick, by the way.”
The wolf wiped the blood off on his leg. “I know.”
He waited for the wolf to offer his name in turn, but after a few minutes he realized that the wolf had no intention of it. “You have a name?” Nick prompted.
“I don’t remember it.”
Scowling, Nick snorted. “You’re joking, right?”
He shook his head, killing every last bit of Nick’s humor. Wow … Did he have amnesia or something else?
A really bad suspicion went through him. “How long have you been here?” Nick asked.
He cast an irritated frown in Nick’s direction. “Why do you talk so much?”
