Infinity Chronicles of Nick

chapter 13

Nick?" Mark called through the door as Nick was coming out of the shower. "It's your mom on the phone and she's hotter than Angelina Jolie lying in a bikini on the equator, covered in mud.... Not that I'm saying your mom is good-looking, not that she isn't, but I don't ever fan-tasize about your mom 'cause that would just be wrong to do to a guy—not that your mom isn't fantasy worthy... but—Ah, hell, all that sounded better in my head. My point is, she's angry. Just take the phone before she scalds my ears some more."

Nick paused. That was an interesting tirade and made him wonder about Mark's day-dreams—Wait, never mind. Knowing Mark, those had to be terrifying. Heck, he was lucky Mark's dream girl wasn't zombified.

He opened the door only enough to reach through it to get the phone from Mark before he put it up to his ear and braced himself for her anger. "Hey, Mom."

"What are you doing?" Yeah, she was totally upset at him. That hot tone could melt polar ice caps. She was yelling so loud, he pulled the phone about three inches from his ear and still heard her perfectly. "Boy, where are you? Do you have any idea what time it is? You are so grounded when I see you, which, for your information, had better be soon, as in right now.

If you're not walking through the door, which you're not, you're busted. You understand?

Nick? Are you listening to me? What do you have to say for yourself? Huh, young man?"

He honestly didn't know what to say that wouldn't make her twice as mad, which was not his goal right now. The name of the game ... survival.

/ value my freedom, but I see severe restriction ahead. Too bad there weren't lawyers out there willing to represent kids with their parents. "Which question do you want me to answer first?"

"Don't you get smart with me, Nicholas Gautier. I'm too mad at you right now to take it."

He had to clamp down on his own temper. If he'd learned anything in his life, it was that his mom didn't react well to direct conflict. A nice, contrite Nicky was often one who avoided being grounded even when he deserved it. "I'm sorry, Mom. I'm not trying to be smart." He was trying to get her to stop screaming at him. "I got covered in—" He paused before he said the word "blood." That would flip her out even more." —goo during the class." A small lie, but what she didn't know wouldn't give her a heart attack and him a restriction that lasted until he was bald and middle-aged. "I—um, I wanted to take a bath at Bubba's before I headed back and got goo all over the club, which might get you into trouble." Not to mention the sight of his bloody clothes would have panicked her into calling the police, and the last thing Bubba needed was another arrest on his record. "I should have called and let you know first. I'm really sorry. I guess I spent more time in the shower than I meant to. Did you know Bubba has one of them steam things that comes down from the ceiling? You should see this bathroom, Mom. It's the coolest awesome ever."

She refused to let him distract her. "Are you all right?"

"Yes, ma'am." A little show of respect always went a long way in soothing her.

She sighed. "Then I guess there's no harm. But you did scare me, Nick. I just want you to know that."

"Sorry, Ma. By the way, Bubba said he'd walk me over to the club."

"That's mighty nice of him." Her voice was finally back to normal and not the l-want-your-butt-on-a-platter tone it'd been a few minutes ago. "Tell him I said thanks."

"I will. Is it okay if we stop for something to eat too?"

Her tone turned sharp again like she was accusing him of something. "I thought you ate at Mr. Hunter's?"

"I did. But I'm hungry again."

"Oh." She went from angry to calm so fast that he wondered if she wasn't the Ferrari of moms. Her top speed had to be .65 nanoseconds. Maybe less. "You must be growing again.

You want to come get some money?"

"Nah, Mr. Hunter gave me some earlier."

"Why?" Boom! Her anger returned. Granted it was tinged with something he thought might be fear or suspicion, but the primary tone was definitely anger.

"Taxi money in case I needed it to get to work or home. He didn't want me on the streetcar after dark 'cause he said he didn't want me to get hurt." Which, when combined with what Mr.

Poitiers had given him, was close to a hundred bucks. They kept this up and he might actually start making some progress on his ever-pathetic college fund.

"I don't know what I think about that, Nick."

What was there to think about? From his point of view if they were willing to throw money at him and he didn't have to do anything for it, he was more than willing to take it. "Well, while you figure that out, can I eat?"

She made a sound of aggravation. "I swear you're the lippiest child on the planet. Yes, Nicky, grab something to eat and I'll see you within the hour or I will come and get you myself.

Do you understand? And you will be a very sorry young man if I do."

"Yes, ma'am."

"I love you, baby." Must be some mutant form of maternal bipolar disorder. There was no other explanation for the frightening mood swings.

"I love you, too, Mom, and I really am sorry I worried you."

"It's all right. It's what you're best at anyway. Remember to eat some vegetables, and neither french fries nor ketchup count."

"Yes, ma'am." Nick hung up the phone and dressed in his jeans and the Triple B big balls and brains T-shirt Bubba had loaned him. The best part of it was Bubba's logo on the back that featured a photo of Bubba holding a shotgun over his shoulder as he leaned up against an oversized computer that had smoke coming out of the top of it and a bunch of bullet holes in the monitor. It read:

Computer Problems? Dial 1-888-Ca-Bubba If I can't take care of your problems one way ...

I'll take care of them anotha'

And in small print under it, it read: We tend all manner of ills for you. Zombies, rodents, and vampires. If you got a pest, we got a cure. Just call us now We will believe you.

Yeah, Bubba really wasn't right in the head, but Nick loved the commercials he and Mark filmed for the store. They were hilarious. And always ended with that slogan. "Ca' Bubba."

Sad thing was, he knew for a fact that Bubba had used a few people's computers for target practice, and he didn't want to think about Mark and the anti-zombie duck urine.

Shaking his head, he toweled off his hair and went downstairs to where Bubba, Mark, Simi, Caleb, and Madaug were discussing the great jailbreak.

They are so going to get me arrested and my mom w'll kill me for it.

Simi pointed to the schematic Bubba had produced from memory of what he liked to call the numerous "unfortunate incarcerations" he'd had at the parish lockup. "See, now the Simi can napalm that and—"

"That might kill them, Simi," Nick pointed out.

She looked up innocently. "Your point?"

Nick was too stunned to answer her honest question.

So Madaug answered for him. "We need Brian alive to test him."

"Well, poo." Simi crossed her arms over her chest and pouted. "You just take all the fun out of it then. You sure you don't know my akri?"

They ignored her.

Caleb leaned back in his chair to study them. "Can't a lawyer get in to see him?"

Bubba nodded as he studied his diagram. "Well, yeah, but a lawyer ain't going to spring him."

Caleb smirked. "Depends on the lawyer."

Bubba looked up with a scowl. "How you mean?"

Caleb's eyes gleamed like a demon eyeing evil. "I know one who owes me a favor."

"You know a lawyer?" Bubba's voice was filled with disbelief.

Caleb rubbed his hands down his shirt. "Hey, beneath these ... well, they're basically crappy clothes." Nick frowned at his choice of words. Only Caleb would consider his nice designer shirt and jeans crappy. "But beneath them beats the heart of someone who knows the right people willing to sometimes do the wrong thing for the right price."

Bubba wasn't completely sold on it and neither was Nick. "Yeah, but we need to do this before anyone else gets killed. We have to know if this is a cure."

Caleb pulled out his cell phone. "Can be arranged. Trust me."

Nick wasn't any more willing to buy into this than Bubba was. Not to mention, there was one really important, as yet unaddressed factor. "How much is this going to cost us?"

Caleb held his hand up. "Hi. This is Malphas calling to talk to Virgil Ward. Is he in?" He gave them a crap-eating grin as he waited.

Nick could hear the tone of a deep voice on the line, but he couldn't make out the words.

"Hey, Virg. Long time." Caleb laughed at something Virgil must have said. "No, it's nothing like that. We rather have a situation where we need to get into jail, not have you get us out."

He paused again to listen. "Yeah, I agree. Stupid is my middle name, you know that. I'm pretty sure you're the one who gave it to me. So can you help a brother out?" He rolled his eyes. "No, you can't have my soul for it. / don't even have my soul. Yeah, I know you're a bloodsucking attorney, but you're going to have to placate yourself with money like the rest of the mundanes."

Nick passed a scowl to Mark, Bubba, and Madaug, who looked as puzzled as he felt.

Caleb was definitely an odd duck.

"Is that really what you want as payment?" he flashed another grin at them. "Done. Can you meet us outside the jail in about twenty minutes? Yeah, we'll see you then. Thanks, bud, and yes, I'm well aware of the fact that I owe you." Hanging up the phone, he winked at them.

"Let's go stun us a zombie."

Nick couldn't believe Caleb had accomplished it so fast. "I'm impressed."

"Don't be. One of you guys is going to have to feed the vampiric lawyer some blood and it can't be me."

Nick rolled his eyes at Caleb's bizarre humor. "Why? You afraid of a little bite?"

Caleb laughed. "I'm anemic."

"And I'm Catholic. Doesn't that knock me out of the running? Caleb shook his head at Nick.

"The Simi gots some barbecue sauce in her bag. It kind of looks like blood if you squint at it the right way. And it don't coagulate between your teeth like blood or give you them funky burps, not to mention it tastes a lot better too. Especially over that type A stuff. Bleh! I'd rather eat my shoes. But that O-flavored blood ... yum!" She straightened and held one finger up in a gesture that strangely reminded him of Smokeythe Bear. "And just remember, kids, three out of four demons all prefer barbecue sauce over hemoglobin."

"Oookay." Bubba stepped away from her, which said something. When Bubba repudiated you, you knew you were the poster child for weird. "On that note ... I guess we need to get in-to the truck."

Grabbing his keys and the cattle prod, Bubba led them outside to his giant dark green Ar-mada, which he said he'd bought because it was one of the few things large enough to haul all of his zombie-killing gear.

And it was great for tailgate parties.

Nick cast a doubtful glance at the cattle prod before he got into the back of the truck while the others piled in. "So, out of curiosity... any ideas on how we're going to get a three-foot cattle prod smuggled into jail?"

Caleb buckled himself in. "That's why we need Virgil. He can smuggle in anything."

"You think a lot of him, don't you?"

Caleb shrugged. "I've known him a long time and have seen him do things that would put hair on your chest." "Yeah, like what?" Caleb refused to elaborate.

Bubba got in and drove over to the Orleans Parish intake and lockup. Nick fell quiet as old memories surged of the handful of times he'd visited his dad—not here, but prison, which was basically the same thing.

'You keep that brat away from me, Cheiise. I dont even want to look at his ugly face. Don t bring him up here anymore to see me."

Love you, too, Dad.

Nick still had no idea how his beautiful, kind mother had hooked up with such a monster. It didn't make any sense. She'd told him once that she liked bad boys. But there was a difference between a guy like him who had attitude and a guy like his dad who had mental damage.

Why did women and girls find psychos so desirable? Even at his school, it was the vicious loons like Stone who got all the girls while nice guys like him only got the finger when he asked them out. He'd never understand it.

Of course, in his case, his mother's insistence on him wearing these foully ugly shirts didn't help.

Whatever.

He just hoped that with his DNA linking him to the psycho killer that he never ended up inside something like this. That was the one promise he'd made to his mother he never wanted to break.

Bubba pulled around back and parked under a streetlight. "What now?" he asked Caleb.

"We wait on Virgil."

"How will he know which car's ours?" Mark asked.

Before Caleb could answer, someone knocked on the window next to Bubba. Bubba jumped a foot in panic. "What the hell?"

Caleb inclined his head to the ...

Nick scowled as his gaze focused on his friend.

Virgil looked nothing like what he'd expected. A little over six feet tall, he couldn't be any older than sixteen or seventeen. Even though he was in a suit and dressed like an attorney, he looked like a teenager going to a funeral.

Surely he wasn't a real lawyer....

Was he?

And as Nick watched him, something odd happened. Virgil suddenly looked older. Like he was in his late twenties. Nick looked around the truck, but no one else seemed to notice.

Caleb opened his door and got out to talk to him. "Hey, Virg."

Virgil eyeballed them while they stayed in the car. There was an insidious air about him ...

but that could just be the evil lawyer funk. "What exactly do you need me to do?"

Caleb glanced at Nick before he answered. "You know the kid who tried to eat his classmate this morning at St. Richard's?"

"Yeah?"

"We need you to shock him with a cattle prod and tell us what happens."

Keeping his lips closed, Virgil laughed—until he realized Caleb wasn't joking. He sobered instantly. "Why?"

"We think we have a cure for his zombie programming."

Virgil's face went through a myriad of emotions. Astonishment, puzzlement, and finally an expression that said he thought they were all short a few monkeys in their cage. "You're out of your mind, aren't you?"

"No, seriously. The kid who programmed the game that turned him into a zombie is in the car." Caleb pointed at Madaug, who waved at Virgil.

Virgil frowned at Caleb. "It's a program that turned him? Not magick?"

"Nope, not magick."

"Too bad. There are a lot of people out there who would've killed for a potion. I could have made you rich."

Caleb shrugged. "They'll have to find another way to make living zombies. In the meantime, we want to make sure that the ones we've turned back to human actually had direct contact with the game. The only one the kid knows played it for sure is the one sitting in jail right now. We gotta make sure this works." He passed the cattle prod to Virgil. "Warning, don't touch yourself with it. It's not low voltage like it's supposed to be. Bubba rigged it so that it actually lets loose over a million volts."

"All right," Virgil said slowly. "Let me make sure I have this straight.... The award-winning plan of intelligence that all ye brainiacs came up with is that I take an illegal, modified cattle prod into parish lockup, past the people armed with guns who are trained to kill, find a kid who's waiting to be arraigned for an attempted murder trial, and shock him until he turns normal again. Anything else?"

"Nope. That'll do it."

Virgil let out a slow breath as he eyed the cattle prod with a doubtful stare. "You seriously owe me." "I know."

Without another word, Virgil headed for the front of the building.

Nick was dying to see this miracle up close and personal. "Hey, Bubba? Can you unlock the door? I need a rest stop." "Sure."

Nick slid out of the SUV and made his way to the building to scope things out. Inside it, there were cops everywhere. No duh. Right? But what stood out most was the metal detect-ors. There was no way Virgil was going to get through all that without getting shot.

This ought to be entertaining.

Nick had just got into position when Virgil waltzed in like he owned the place. Several officers greeted him and acted as if they didn't see the cattle prod at all. In fact, Virgil fed it through the belt scanner before he walked through the upright one—all the while talking to the officers.

He was putting his shoes on when the cattle prod came out. One of the officers picked it up and held it out to Virgil.

"Don't forget your umbrella, Mr. Ward."

"Thanks, Cabal. I know it's not supposed to rain, but I believe in always being prepared."

"I hear you. Especially here in N'awlins. You never know when a downpour's going to hit.

As I always say, you don't like the weather? Wait a minute."

Laughing, Virgil took the cattle prod and headed for the hallway.

Nick was aghast as Virgil disappeared from his sight without anyone saying anything about his weapon.

You know if I did that, they'd body slam me down and shoot me in the head for good measure.

Stunned by what he'd seen, Nick made his way back to the SUV where the others were waiting.

Bubba arched a brow at him. "That was quick." Nick buckled himself into his seat. "I mostly wanted to see if Virgil made it past security." Caleb looked smug, but didn't say anything. "And?" Mark asked.

"Don't ask me how, but he did. They didn't even see it. It was like the cattle prod was invisible or something." Bubba frowned. "How?"

Simi let out a peeved huff. "He's a vampire, demon, human people. Jeez, didn't any of you notice?"

Mark scoffed, "Most lawyers are. Ain't never met one yet what wasn't a bloodsucker or a soulsucker. Of course, in my case, they're all money suckers."

Caleb's phone started ringing. He picked it up and answered it. "Yeah?" He listened for a second, then said, "Wait. I'm putting you on speaker." He switched it on. "Now repeat what you just told me."

"What the hell's in this cattle prod? I about launched the kid through the wall."

Caleb snorted. "Not that part, Virgil. Move on."

"Okay, I shocked him and now's he's squalling like a girl, wanting his mommy. He says he has no idea of how he got here. I asked him about biting the kid and he has no idea what I'm talking about. Best of all, he's no longer trying to eat my brains, which have to be missing for me to agree to this. So to answer your experiment, I think it works."

Bubba looked skeptical. "Can we trust his report?"

"You do know I can hear you, right?" Virgil's tone was irritated.

"Yeah," Bubba drawled, "and I repeat, can we trust you?" "Well, since I don't have a dog in this fight, yeah. Why would I lie? Not that I'm not beyond those ethics. I fully believe in whatever lie will set me free. But in this case, I'm being honest. The kid's now clean. Listen for yourself...."

"I want to go home. Why am I here? I don't understand what happened...."

Caleb turned the speaker off. "Thanks, Virgil. I'll get the payment to you later." He paused, then looked at Mark and Bubba. "You guys need your cattle prod back?"

"Absolutely," Mark said. "We got some people to shock."

Caleb nodded, then spoke into the phone. "If you don't mind, please bring it back to us."

Virgil appeared before he could hang up the phone.

This time, Nick was the one who jumped as Bubba got out to return the cattle prod to the back of the SUV.

Virgil eyed Nick closely as he studied him through the truck window. "Don't I know you?"

Nick shook his head as a strange chill went over his body that made his skin crawl. Virgil definitely wasn't what he seemed. "I don't think so."

Caleb cleared his throat.

Virgil glanced over at him and something strange passed between them. When he turned his attention back to Nick, his look was guarded and cold. "Nice to meet you, Nick."

"How do you know my name?"

Virgil didn't answer. "I better get back. I have night court in an hour and don't want to miss it. My first case is a doozie: Some guy beat up another on Bourbon with a hot dog before he tried to kill his victim by drowning him in a puddle." He literally vanished.

Bubba turned around in the seat to stare at Caleb. "Interesting friend you got there."

"You have no idea."

Mark scratched at his ear. "We need to let Tabitha and crew know how to fight them."

Madaug fished his phone out and pressed the auto dial for his brother. "I'm on it."

Bubba pulled out of the parking space and headed back to the store. "All right, we have half the equation. We know we can turn them human again. But the question is, how are so many getting their hands on the game?"

Mark shook his head. "Someone else has to be disseminating it."

Nick scowled at the unfamiliar word. "Dis-a what?"

"Disseminating," Mark repeated. "It means distributing it."

"Then why didn't you say that?"

Mark looked at Bubba. "Remind me to get him a word-of-the-day calendar." Then he pinned Nick with a shaming stare over the back of the seat. "You need to up your vocabulary, boy. You can't walk around letting people think you're stupid. Expand your horizons. Besides, it's fun to call people names they have to look up to realize they've been insulted."

Bubba laughed. "Yeah, that's a twofer there. You get away with it and then they're twice as mad when they realize how bad you really insulted them. Especially if they mistake it for a compliment when you say it and thank you for it."

"And," Caleb jumped in, "those insults keep you from getting grounded by your mom."

You know, they all had veryvalid points.

"And best of all, it'll help you with your SATs," Madaug said as he hung up the phone—he would think of that. He looked at Mark. "Eric and the zoo crew are heading to the store for supplies. Do /all have enough stun guns for them?"

Bubba bristled as if Madaug had insulted him. "Does a bear defecate rurally? What kind of question is that for someone who owns the biggest gun store in town? Of course I got plenty. I got enough Tasers to light up New York City and Boston just for giggles."

Good, 'cause Nick had a feeling they might be needing them.

Ambrose grabbed the bookcase and slammed it to the ground, spilling the ancient books he'd carefully collected for centuries across the floor of his stygian office. It probably destroyed a few of them, but at this point, he really didn't care. Rage burned through him with the power of a thousand suns so raw and potent that he could taste it.

"Why can't I stop it?" he snarled. Why, with all the powers he'd mastered, all the elements he controlled, couldn't he prevent a mere fourteen-year-old boy from being an idiot? No matter what he did, certain events kept unfolding.

And he wanted blood.

He felt a calm, soothing hand on his cheek, covering his bow-and-arrow mark that she'd given him during a time so long ago he should have no memory of it. Yet it was forever carved deep in his mind. More beautiful than any other, Artemis, goddess of the hunt, put all women to shame. Her long red hair flowed to her tiny waist, which was accentuated by the white Grecian gown she wore. "Shhh ... You shouldn't work yourself up to such a frizzy."

His anger tripled. "The word is frenzy," he corrected. Because of the differences between the English he spoke and her native ancient Greek, she constantly screwed up sayings and colloquialisms.

"What are you doing here, Artemis?" he demanded.

"I'm trying to calm you down, love. You shouldn't do this to yourself. It pains me to see you suffer like this."

And that dark power inside him wanted to strike out at her and make her beg for his mercy. It was an all-demanding power that was getting harder and harder to fight.

Soon there would be no way back from it. It would consume him and he would become his father. A mindless killing machine that lacked all compassion and humanity. A machine that wanted to end everything.

Kill everyone.

Ambrose stared at the wall, where he saw himself as a boy. Nick Gautier had no idea how the random small decisions he was making right now would turn him into the beast Ambrose had become.

/ have to save myself.

More than that, he had to save the ones he loved. Before it was too late. But how?

God, howcould I have been so stupid, even at fourteen? It was so hard to look back and see the faces of his friends and loved ones, especially since he knew what would become of them if he didn't alter history. It cut so deep that it alone was almost enough to make him insane.

Howdo I stop it?

Ambrose turned to Artemis. He hated her. She, like Acheron, had played a major role in turning him into the Malachai.

No, Nick, you did that to yourself.

But it was so much easier to blame them. They had made it so easyfor him to make the wrong decisions. Decisions he was now trying to unmake before he lost the ability to care.

Sighing in frustration, he met Artemis's gaze. The gaze of the woman who'd brought him back from the dead and unleashed his powers. Powers he was now trying to unlock earlier in his life. Had he possessed some of them as a kid, he could have saved the ones who were most important to him.

He could have saved his mom....

Nick flinched as he forced that memory away and turned his thoughts to something he'd said to himself earlier. "Who is Nekoda?"

Artemis gave him a blank stare. "Never heard of him." "Her, Artie. It's a girl."

One of her perfect brows shot up as jealousy darkened her green eyes. "What kind of girl?"

"I don't know. Nick knows her."

"You are Nick." Her tone was testy.

"Exactly. How can / not know who she is?" How could he not have seen her as he looked back? For some reason, she was a complete ghost to him. No matter what power he used, he couldn't find this piece of his past. Even with certain aspects altered, he should still be able to hone in on her.

Yet he couldn't.

Why?

Artemis shrugged her thin shoulders. "You forgot her. It happens. You were human ...

once."

But he wasn't human now. Now he was the type of creature he and Tabitha had once hunted and put down like a rabid animal. More than that, he was hungry.

Starving.

Artemis took a chance by being here with him. Every time he fed from her blood, he grew stronger and deadlier. It was getting harder and harder not to kill her with his powers and absorb hergodhood.

Harder to not destroy everyone and everything.

I wont do it.

Yes, you will. In time. You cant change what you are. Fight all you went. In the end, you are what you were bom to be and nothing will ever change that.

But he refused to believe it.

He stared at himself on the wall as the younger him innocently rode in the back of Bubba's SUV toward a destiny that had been carved in blood onto his heart. C'mon, Nick, dont let us down. I need you to be strong, kid.

Smart.

Most of all, he needed himself not to make the same mistakes. Some things, such as meeting Simi while he was young, were already changed.

But others ...

He ground his teeth as he saw the future as clearly as he saw his past.

Karnarsas, the final battle where he would command his father's army, was coming. And when it did, if he didn't change the past, he would destroy the rest of the people he loved....

All of them.