Page 38 of Inferno (Chronicles of Nick 4)
And that wonderful, beautiful kiss …
It alone had taught him regret and sadness. Misery. To this day, he would give anything if he could take back that afternoon and leave her as pure as he’d found her. In one thoughtless, selfish heartbeat, he’d killed the very thing he loved most.
I am a destroyer.
It was all he’d been born for. And he had destroyed the only woman in the universe that had ever meant anything to him. Damn me for it. And well he should have been.
His heart broken, he reached for her now. “Please don’t cry, Cherise. I swear I won’t let anyone hurt you again.”
Her cold look pierced him. “Why should I believe you?”
“Because I mean it.” He reached to brush away her tears. She cringed from his touch, and his stomach lurched. Please don’t do that to me.…
All he wanted was for her to smile at him the way she used to.
You ruined it. Just as you ruin everything.
“What do you want from me, Cherise?”
She wiped angrily at her tears. “I want nothing from you. I want nothing to do with you, either.”
His throat tightened with unfamiliar sadness. Very well, my precious …
He would leave her alone. But he would make sure no one else put a light of sadness in those celestial blue eyes.
* * *
Nick did his best to conjure the room he’d seen his parents in.
Nothing happened. He kept running the image over and over in his head, but with every second that passed, he lost hope. I can’t do it. I am worthless.
I can’t even save my own mother.…
Kody rose up on her tiptoes and whispered in his ear. “I believe in you, Nick.” She tightened her hand on his.
In that moment, a bright white light shot through his skull and exploded. When it did, it felt like a blitz tackle against his abdomen, one that lifted him off his feet and shot him toward the sky.
One second, they were in his living room. In the next …
They were at the end of Canal Street? Really?
How could I have screwed this up?
Scowling, Nick turned around in the center of the neutral ground where Convention Center Boulevard intersected Canal at the World Trade Center.
Even worse? That gross, creepy Mardi Gras clown statue that was the stuff of horror movies and bad childhood memories stared right at him, mocking his incompetence. He’d always hated the Batman/Joker lunatic smile it had.
In daylight it was disturbing. At night with the shadowy lights on it …
“Hello, little boy with your itty-bitty friends,” his mind created a demonic falsetto for the statue’s voice. “Would you like to play with my shrunken head on a stick? Don’t be afraid, he only wants a small bite of your flesh. And I only want your soul.…”
Yeah, what sicko had thought that was a great landmark when ninety percent of the population shared his clownphobia?
“Why are we here?” Nick asked his friends as he eyeballed the jester lest it move and do something evil, as all clowns eventually did.
Caleb cursed in a low tone. “I should have thought of this place.”
Nick was even more confused. “Why? The ferry doesn’t run this late and the Riverwalk’s been closed for hours.”
“No, not those.” Kody let go of his hand and checked her watch. “You think we can still get in?” she asked Caleb, who shrugged.
Nick was getting really irritated. “In where? Trouble? Synch? Between?”
They exchanged an amused look with his last guess.
“You’re warm,” Caleb said with an evil twist to his lips.
Yeah, that clown was definitely possessing him.…
“Le monde au delà du voile,” Kody said.
Nick scowled. “The world behind the veil?”
She nodded. “Why do you think they call this neutral ground?”
“Because the Creoles in the Quarter,” he pointed to the left side of Canal, “and the Americans in Uptown,” he pointed right, “couldn’t stand each other. So they let weeds and crap grow up to be a barrier between the two parts of the city. Later, they started meeting here to do business and sell things. Since they were conducting a form of cold war, they started calling all the medians where they met neutral ground.”
“Yeah … you keep on believing the lies our kind feed to the humans.” Caleb clapped his hand against Nick’s shoulder. “Haven’t you ever wondered about the Spanish Plaza behind this place?”
Was he on demon crack? “Um, no. Not really. Other than it was a cool place to get my feet wet when I was a kid.”
Kody jumped in on Caleb’s lunacy. “Ever notice that from up high, the fountain in the center of it and its surrounding area bears a scary resemblance to a Xibalba round? Right down to the way it lays with the river?”
“No. But that has a lot to do with the fact that I don’t know who or what Xibalba is.”
“Mayan underworld,” Kody explained. “The word itself means ‘place of fear.’ And all over the world, there are doorways from this world to others. Doorways we can use to access alternate places.”
Nick glanced up at the sinister statue. “Well, that explains Mr. Creepy Clown being here, doesn’t it?”
A slow smile curled one side of Caleb’s mouth as he let out a low, evil laugh. “This is going to be some twisted fun.”
“Malphas!” Kody snapped. “Don’t you dare!”
Walking backwards, Caleb spread his arms wide and laughed. “I’ve got to. I can’t resist. It’s pulling me, Kody … I can’t stop.” Caleb feigned great physical pain.
Kody growled at Caleb before she took Nick’s hand and pulled him after Caleb. Nick wanted to drag his feet, but he couldn’t do that if this really would get him to his mother.
Caleb began running, then launched himself straight up to the very narrow pedestal the clown stood on. Nick gaped at what had to be a twenty-foot jump. Not to mention, Caleb had to balance on something about the size of a narrow two-by-four.
“Forget quarterback. You ought to play running back.”
Ignoring him, Caleb reached to the smaller jester head on a stick that Nick had named Mr. Little Creepy.
Nick curled his lip. “Don’t touch that thing. You’re gonna get rabies or scabies or parvo or something.”
With another evil laugh, Caleb touched the head.
“Get your finger out of my nose, daeve!”
Cursing, Nick jumped three feet back as the statue came to life. “I knew it! Damn it all! I knew that thing was a minion of hell!”
The jester went slack-jawed as he turned his head toward Caleb. “Please tell me he isn’t one of us.”
“Hate to disappoint you, Sal.”
The jester made a face of absolute agony. “How far demons have fallen that he can be counted among our family. Sad, sad day.” Sighing heavily, he shook his head. Then he glanced back to Caleb. “I suppose you want in?”
“Yes, we do.”
The jester held the small head out toward Caleb. “You know the cost of admission.”
Caleb bit his finger, then allowed nine drops of blood to fall onto the smaller clown head.
The jester tapped his heart with the little head, then waved it high above. As he moved it, the Riverwalk sign on the right flickered so fast that for a moment, Nick thought he was imagining things.
“Thanks, Sal.” Caleb jumped down to land near Nick. “You ready?”
“For nightmares? Sure. Will now have plenty of them, Cay, merci beaucoup.”
Caleb snorted. “You’re such a baby.”
Yeah, right. “I’m not the only person who doesn’t like clowns, you know?”
Kody patted his shoulder in sympathy. Caleb ignored him.
As they passed the giant Lafayette horse statue beside the Trade Center, Lafayette lifted his tricorn hat to them as his horse reared up on its pedestal. The statue rider jerked its reins and it settled down. “Malphas,” he said in greeting.
Caleb inclined his head to him. “Gilbert. Good to see you.”
“Et toi, mon ami. Bon soir.”
“À bientôt.”
His jaw dropping, Nick blinked at Caleb. “I think I now know what it is you do when you’re not with me. How much time do you spend here?” Apparently, a lot.
Caleb passed him an innocent stare. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Sure he didn’t.…
Without another word, Caleb led them under the Riverwalk sign arch that Nick had gone through hundreds of times in his life. Normally, it led to the Spanish Plaza where the humongous, ornate fountain would be on the right and an oyster bar straight back.
Tonight, the air seemed to shiver around them. And as they passed underneath the arch, a flash of light blinded Nick for the merest second. When he could see again, the Plaza had a dome over it. Instead of being dark from night, an eerie green glow made it as bright as day. And the water in the fountain appeared to be blood.
“What is this place?” he whispered to Kody.
“Think of it like an amusement park and holding station. It’s where demons who want to enter the human world can stay until they find a way in. Or demons from our world can come and intermingle with nonhumans in a relatively safe environment.” She gestured to what appeared to be a row of stores and a building that had strange music coming from it. “There’s even a demon brothel and bar.”
Great …
“It’s also where the Hellchasers hold their prisoners until they can hand them off to the right party.” Caleb slowed his pace as they neared a man with short brown hair and greenish brown eyes. He wore brown armguards with gold embroidery that started glowing at Caleb’s approach.
“Speak of the pain,” Caleb mumbled to Nick and Kody. Then louder, he spoke to the man in front of them. “Tristan.”
Tristan narrowed his eyes dangerously at Nick and Kody. “Who are your friends, Malphas?”
“Not your targets.”
“Yeah,” Nick added. “We’re not the droids you’re looking for.”
Kody was aghast. “Don’t taunt the Hellchaser, Nick. Most lack a sense of humor.”
Without warning, Caleb banked left and headed through a set of glass doors that led to a long, narrow hallway. “All right, Nick. You’re up. Sniff out your parents.”
“Excuse me?”
“This is the Hall of Holding. If you saw them in a holding cell, it would most likely be one of these.”
Nick slowed his pace. “What is this? Like demon death row?”
“No. More like intake.”
That didn’t make sense. “Why would my parents be in here?”
Caleb held his hands up and shrugged. “You’re the one who led us here.”
True. He still had no idea who had taken his parents, never mind the why.
With a deep breath for courage, Nick summoned his powers and used them to probe the ether for a sign or signal. His ears grew warm as he finally located them. They really were here.
Thank you, God.
He grinned at his friends. “Got it.”
Kody took his hand as Caleb touched his shoulder. Nick teleported them into the room … right in front of his father. The instant they appeared, the demons in the walls froze in shock, as did Nick’s parents.
Caleb clenched his shoulder so hard, he bruised it. “Uh … Nick.” He enunciated each word slowly and with great irritation. “You forgot to tell us one itty-bitty important detail.” His grip tightened even more as he snarled quickly. “Like the fact your parents are surrounded by thin walls holding back things that want to eat us!”
As if they heard every word, the demons went on an attacking frenzy.
“Baby?” His mother ran to him and grabbed him into a fierce hug. “Are you all right?”
“Fine. You?”
She slid her gaze to his father before she nodded.
Nick turned slowly to face Adarian. This was the first time he’d stood beside his father since he’d been a child. Back then, his father had looked like a giant and had scared the bejesus out of him.
Tonight, they stood eye to eye. And while his father still had him on body weight and muscle mass, he no longer intimidated Nick at all.
And Adarian knew it.
But the one thing that did disturb Nick was how much he favored his father in looks. The only thing different was their eye color. How his mother could ever look at him and not curse and beat him, he had no idea. He was a walking reminder, every single day of her life, of what his father had done to her when she’d been younger than he was now, and not once in sixteen years of his life had she ever let Nick know it.
In that one single heartbeat, the full capacity of her heart and love hit him so hard, he could barely breathe.
And one day, he, who had ruined her entire life by being born to her, would be the cause of her death.
No wonder Ambrose went Malachai. Nick finally got it.
“You are an idiot of the first magnitude,” his father growled. “I should have devoured you when you were born.”
