She laughed before she turned toward LaShonda to discuss homework.
The demon sense inside Nick picked up on something. He wasn’t sure what. But he’d learned from past encounters to pay heed to that prickly sensation. It was worse than Spidey sense.
Especially with the weather outside so unnatural while he felt it. It was just such a state as this that had heralded the arrival of Zavid when the Aamon had been sent after him. And not to play Parcheesi and watch videos.
Again, he felt that weird slowdown of time before everything sped up like some kind of computer game lag.
What the heck?
His vision darkened in that peculiar way that let him know he no longer saw the world around him as a human being. He was now viewing the world with his perspicacity.
That wasn’t unusual.
Nah. What freaked him was the sight of the odd creatures moving through his classmates and around them as if searching for something very specific. Huge and birdlike, they reminded him of mummified plague doctors that were armed with adamantine sickles and wearing black cavalier hats and saturated in blood.
Invisible to the rest of his class and teachers, they paused and turned in his direction. Then, in the next heartbeat, they headed straight for him.
CHAPTER 3
R
eady to battle, Nick stood up on the bleachers as two of Satan’s plague doctors came up to sniff at him while four more hung back, unseen and undetected, to float around his classmates like freaked-out Kabuki dancers. The one thing he’d learned over the last couple of years while dealing with preters was to be ready for anything.
But don’t start nothing with them until you had to.
Though to be honest, it was really hard to not shove them out of his personal space. Especially when they practically buried their wrapped, bloody beaks in his armpits.
Not to mention the other no-zone of his body they were headed for.
“Nick, don’t move.”
He saw Kody’s ethereal form on his right. What are these things? he projected his thoughts to her.
“Zeitj?gers.”
I just love it, cher, when you say things like I ought to know what they are.
One of them rudely poked his shoulder.
He barely caught himself before he taught the hideous thing some manners.
“Just relax, Nick. I don’t think they’re here for you.”
Don’t think or don’t know?
Before Kody could answer, Ms. Pantall stood up to glare at him from the lowest bench. “Nick? Do you have a problem?”
He slid his gaze to the huge sickle that was still coated with the blood of the last victim the demons on each side of him had beheaded. That blood was also smeared all over the bandages and clothes wrapped around the two of them and dripping onto the bleachers.
Yeah, he had two very big, ugly problems.
Unfortunately, his teacher couldn’t see either of those problems or the sickles they carried. Probably a good thing she didn’t see the blood, for that matter.Nick tried to stay as still as possible. Maybe they were like bulls and only attacked things that moved. “No, ma’am. Just having some growing pains. Trying to stretch them out a bit.”
“Sit your butt down, Gautier, or you’ll be running drills during practice till you drop!”
Nick cringed at Coach Heffron’s sharp bellow. “Yes, sir.”
One of the demons pointed at Nick’s foul orange shirt and made a noise that sounded suspiciously like laughter before it stepped back and they moved away from him. Great. Even the seriously jacked-up horror movie rejects mocked his wardrobe.
Thanks, Mom. My future therapist will appreciate the business.
Torn between being relieved and offended, Nick sat down.
Kody’s astral projection moved to sit next to him. “You okay?”
He gave a subtle nod. Just a little offended. So… what’s a zeitj?ger? And do they have anything to do with Caleb’s sudden onset of projectile vomiting?
“I doubt they have anything to do with Caleb’s sickness. My fear is that they might be here for you and they don’t know it yet.”
Meaning?
“They’re time sentinels, Nick. They guard it, monitor it, protect it, and punish those who abuse it.”
Another bad feeling went through him as she said that. “Is that why I haven’t heard anything from Ambrose?” Ambrose was his future self who had tricked and killed a demon to steal enough power that he could come back in time and try to save the life of his mother and change his destiny so that he didn’t destroy the world.
So far, Ambrose had only mucked things up worse.
Together, they were supposed to be trying to unravel this gnarled mess that was Nick’s life and future. But it’d been some time since Ambrose had made an appearance. The last time Nick had seen him, Ambrose had confessed that he was on the brink of slipping and turning into the demonic Malachai that would destroy the world and end everything and everyone.
Even himself.
Every day that passed without any word from Ambrose made him wonder what his future self was up to.