Page 20 of Inferno (Chronicles of Nick 4)
Full grown, Nick would be stellar. In fact, it was taking everything she had not to take a bite out of him now. But he was still very skittish. Every time she reached toward him, he jumped as if she were a high-voltage wire about to wrap around him and zap him hard. While it had been cute in the beginning, it was starting to wear on her nerves.
She had to get him to relax if she was to open the channel for his powers. “Are you hungry?” she asked as they put his new clothes in her trunk.
“I’m always hungry.”
That had been true of her brother at Nick’s age, too. She’d never seen anyone pack away more food than Zavid.
She ran through her mind the restaurants that were nearby that would appeal to a teenaged Malachai. “Hard Rock?”
She saw the hesitation in his eyes before he mumbled, “Sure.”
What was that? “Would you rather eat somewhere else?”
“Nah. Hard Rock’s fine.” He frowned as she moved to unlock the doors to her car. “We’re driving?”
“Of course.”
He actually scowled at her. “Why? It’s just on the other side of the Westin. It’s what? Half a mile, if even? We’re just going to move from this parking lot over two? It’d take us longer to navigate traffic than hoof it.”
Was he serious? Zarelda didn’t walk. She’d never been a pedestrian.
“C’mon,” he said, flashing those adorable dimples at her. “We can walk along the river. It’ll be fun and scenic. That is why you have a convertible, right? To embrace nature and the fresh air?”
No, but she couldn’t tell him the real reason—it made jumping out for human victims a lot easier. Biting her lip, she glanced up at the evening sky. “It’s getting dark.”
He scoffed at her argument. “It’s early still and there’s plenty of lighting along the way.” He winked at her. “C’mon, Casey, I’ll be your protector.”
If he only knew the truth.…
He was the one who needed a protector.
From her.
Humans definitely weren’t her predator. They were her food. “All right.” She locked, then closed the door and walked around to his side of the car.
He held his elbow out to her so that she could take it. Zarelda almost declined, but Casey wouldn’t do that. She’d be flattered and thrilled to walk arm in arm with a boy this fine. And in truth, so was she. It’d been a long time since anyone made her feel like this. Like she was desirable and normal.
She hated him for that.
Worse, he placed his hand over hers and walked as if she meant something to him. That alone made her want to claw out his eyes and eat them for hors d’oeuvres.… Because she knew it was a lie. If he had any inkling as to who and what she really was, he’d be fighting her or trying to kill her.
Just like all demons did.
She’d already been lied to and betrayed once, and her brother was paying the price for it.
Trust no one. Every thing betrays.
And the Malachai in particular was one nasty, treacherous beast.
Unaware of her hatred, Nick took her to the back side of the parking deck that looked out onto a large cement wall that blocked them from the huge bank of transformers.
Casey cut an unamused smirk at him. “Nice wall, Nick. Love the danger high voltage signs.”
He laughed. “Only the best for you, baby. Only the best for you.” Still smiling, he led her across the parking lot toward the streetcar tracks. And the closer they got to them, the more tense he became. Did he sense something she didn’t? Were they about to be attacked by an unseen threat?
She glanced about nervously, well aware of the fact that even a half-formed Malachai had a much more heightened alarm system than she did. “Are you all right?”
“Yeah.” He loosened his hold on her as if he would need to start running any second. “Pavlovian response to how many times in the past I’ve had to run to catch a streetcar.”
She snorted until she realized he wasn’t joking. “How much have you had to do that?”
“Let me put it to you this way…” He checked his watch. “The next car that’s heading to the French Market station from here will arrive in just under six minutes.”
“Oh my God, you have the whole line schedule memorized? Are you serious?”
“As heart failure. Before we moved, I used to catch the French Market stop to Dumaine every morning for school.”
She wrinkled her nose as she remembered those days. “No wonder you were always dripping sweat when you got there. Why didn’t you ride a bus?”
He shrugged. “Bus would have taken longer and it wouldn’t get me any closer than Ursulines or the Square. The streetcar was quicker and more direct.”
That only confused her more. “But the Market to Dumaine is even shorter than our little jaunt here. Wouldn’t it have been easier and closer to get off at Ursulines on either the bus or streetcar?”
“Yeah, but after I ran to catch the streetcar at the Market, I needed that extra stop to catch my breath. And with morning traffic, the streetcar was still quicker and much more reliable.”
That confession stunned her. Why would anyone put themselves through that kind of misery just to get to a school where he was a pariah? “You really aren’t joking?”
“No, I’m not.”
Nor was he complaining. That was the hardest part to believe.
He never did, for that matter. He merely accepted people and things as they were.
How refreshing.
And stupid.
Arm in arm, they walked up the stairs behind the Bienville station, to the brick walkway that ran mostly parallel to the Mississippi River. The water glistened from the setting sun and provided a nice tranquility to the cool evening. Off in the background was the picturesque suspension bridge that connected the city to Algiers Point.
Nick was right. It was very pretty, and at this time of day, semiprivate. There was almost no one over here with them. Only a few stragglers or hobos off in the distance.
For the first time since Grim had assigned her duty here in New Orleans, she saw the city as something other than a nuisance, and Nick as something other than a target.
“Okay, I’m glad you talked me into this. I do like it.”
He flashed those dimples. “I told you.”
Slowing down, she laughed as they neared the beautiful Monument to the Immigrant where a muse of hope looked out over the river while protecting a Victorian family of four that bravely faced the city with nothing more than the clothes on their backs. She didn’t know why, but the carved little girl and boy reminded her of her and her brother.
Unwilling to remember those days, she slid a teasing glance to Nick. “Yeah, yeah. You’re the man. What can I say?”
Before Nick could answer, a shadow stood up from where he’d been crouching on the hidden benches in front of the monument and pointed a gun at them. “You can say nothing, bitch, if you want to stay alive.”
Another armed man stepped out from the tree on the left and pinned Casey and Nick between them.
Sucking her breath in sharply, she froze. While she was an immortal creature, the body she was in wasn’t. One shot into Casey’s flesh, and she could be trapped between worlds forever.…
CHAPTER 10
What were the odds of this? Nick ground his teeth until he tasted blood as he recognized the guys holding guns on them.
Alan and Tyree.
Oh yeah, this was karma of epic proportions. He owed both of them a payback large enough to get the country completely out of debt. They were the whole reason he now worked for Kyrian Hunter. Back in the day when he’d stupidly called them friends, Alan had duped him into almost mugging two tourists.
What kind of “friend” would do that to another, right?
Hey, let’s all go to prison together, shall we? Forget college, Nick, and a future with a beautiful wife and kids. Angola prison and baggy orange jumpsuits are so much better for you and your ego, too. We’ll all get big hairy boyfriends and never be eligible for a decent job again. C’mon, let’s go!
Boo-yah!
When Nick had refused to jeopardize what little future he had to go along with Alan’s “brilliant” scheme, they’d turned on him with relish and had almost killed him.
But for Kyrian intervening at the very last second, they would have. And they’d have done it with a gleam in their eyes that he had yet to forget. His childhood “friends” who had claimed to be his brothers from another mother had relished beating him into the ground.
Now as he stared at them in their natural gangsta habitat, he wondered how he’d ever seen them as anything other than the selfish animals they were. How had he ever called them friends and not seen the cruelty they were capable of? Yet back then that cruelty had never been directed at him, only other people Tyree and Alan had judged deserving of their hatred.
At the end of the day, Nick hadn’t wanted to judge them for things they couldn’t help, the way the rest of the world had wrongly judged him. But sometimes, just sometimes, those judgments were warranted and necessary survival skills. And instead of summarily saying they were wronged by circumstances beyond their control, Nick should have looked closer at them and seen what part of their situation was exactly their fault and no one else’s.
Right or wrong, everyone made their own decisions and should be held accountable for them.
Trying not to be obvious, Nick scanned the shadows for the missing member of their merry criminal band. But for once, he was nowhere to be seen.
“Where’s Mike?” Nick asked, putting Casey behind him as he calmly faced them. This kind of cowardly scum didn’t frighten him at all. They just pissed him off. “Did he finally wise up and move on, or is he lying in a gator’s belly down in the bayou ’cause he caught a clue and told you where to stick it?”
Alan gaped as he recognized Nick’s voice. “Go-chay? Nah, dog, that ain’t you. That can’t be you.”
Tyree curled his lip as he ran his covetous gaze over Nick’s new clothes. “Nah. It don’t look like Go-chay at all. He’s not wearing them gag-ugly shirts.”
“Go-shay,” Nick said from between his clenched teeth, correcting their mispronunciation of his last name—something they knew he couldn’t stand.
Alan sneered at him. “Who you roll to get them threads, boy? I know you can’t afford them with what your whore of a mama makes taking off her clothes for pocket change, and that old lady you work for sure ain’t paying that kind of money for you to take out her trash at night.”
Tyree laughed. “If she is, I think we ought to pay her a visit one night after she closes her shop.”
Casey started crying hysterically. “What’s going on, Nick? Who are these people?”
He spoke to her over his shoulder. “It’s all right. Stay calm.”
Alan let out a low whistle. “That your woman? Day-am.” He tilted his head to see her better. “Nah, can’t be. She too fine for a piece of ignorant Cajun gutter trash like you. Now be a good boy and pass her purse and your wallet over to us, and we might let you live through the night.”
A slow smile spread across Nick’s face as he broke into a thick Cajun accent. Something that should have warned them how hot his temper was right now and the fact that they ought to be running away as fast as they could. The more Cajun he sounded, the more lethal his actions. “À présent, cher. What say we pass a bon temps instead, n’est pas?”
Alan cocked the .38 he held sideways and aimed it at Nick’s chest. “How many times I got to shoot till you learn better than to mess with me, boy?”
Payback’s a b—
And she was about to come over with friends to collect rent with interest.
Nick held his hands up and splayed his fingers to lure them into thinking he was passive.
Yeah, right. Nick Gautier passive …
They really were too stupid to live.
“Ça c’est bon, capon. Ain’t no need in getting hos-tile. Bon rien.” Nick moved slowly while Casey’s wails picked up tempo. He held one hand out to her. “Let me have your purse, bebelle.”
Tears streamed down her cheeks, streaking her makeup as she obeyed without question … something Kody would have never done. Heck, Kody would have already yanked out a sword and cut one of their heads off.
But Casey was not Kody. She was meek and helpless.
Nick wrapped his hand in the strap of her purse while he fished his wallet out of his back pocket. Then he whispered to Casey, “When I move toward them, I want you to drop to the ground, okay? And stay there until I tell you to get up.” Louder, for the benefit of their muggers, he said, “Just do what they say, Boo. It’ll all be all right.”
Her hands visibly shaking, she nodded.
Tyree licked his lips as he skimmed Casey’s body with interest. “I think we ought to keep his girl and have some fun with her before we let her go. What do you think, Alan?”
