“I brought two in and was only told to take two out. That is all I can do.”
Nick scowled as he faced the one person he owed everything to. Without the púca they’d have never made it. It didn’t seem right to leave him here and go home after everything Aeron had done for him.
“Aeron —”
“It’s fine, boyo.” He gave Nick a cheerful smile that didn’t quite reach his pale eyes. “Give Xev me best.”
Nick nodded glumly, feeling like crap over this. It wasn’t fair or right.
But then, life seldom was.
As Nick started to turn to leave through the portal, Livia ran up to him and grabbed his Malachai dagger from his back pocket. Before he could ask her what she was doing with it, she cut his throat and vanished through the portal, then sealed it closed.
Stunned by the pain, Nick fell to his knees as he tried to stop the bleeding with his own hands. But it was useless. He was going to die.
He couldn’t believe what had just happened.
Livia had murdered him.
After everything he’d done for her.
I saved her life. Kept her from having to go back to her prison.
And this was how she repaid him. Kyrian was right. No good deed goes unpunished.
Kneeling by his side, Aeron cawed and summoned a small murder of crows to them. Since he couldn’t hold or grasp anything, he had the crows bring straw and brush to make a pillow for Nick’s head. “Breathe, Malachai, stay calm.”
Easier said than done. His senses reeled as his fury mounted over her actions. Livia had betrayed him in the worst sort of way.
The bitch had cut his throat! Literally. And left him to die alone in this realm without friend or family!
But there was nothing to be done about it. In a few minutes, he’d bleed out and be gone from this life.
Forever.
And in that one heartbeat when his anger and hatred were at their highest point, when all he wanted was vengeance and blood, he let it go and released all that negativity from his body and heart.
There was no need in holding on to it now at the very end of his life. Not when he had so many regrets that saddened him and made him wish he’d spent his finite time more productively.
And with the people who’d mattered most to him.
The biggest regret inside his heart was his inability to save his mother and Caleb.
Not being with Kody, during these final precious minutes.
Yet there was one last regret he could take care of before he died. While it wouldn’t render aid to those closest to him, it would to one who had helped them all in the past.
At least he hoped it would. And if he could help one last person before he died, then he could go in peace.
His eyesight blurring and fading, he pulled out his grimoire. It and the dagger Livia had stolen were two of the most powerful tools a Malachai had, and the two he’d first mastered. Sort of. No one ever really mastered the grimoire since it was possessed by an ancient yōkai – a mischievous eastern oracle spirit that had been trapped by his father and tricked into the book. The only way to communicate with her was to offer Nashira a blood sacrifice.
Blood has power and yours has more than most. Make sure you guard it and bleed as little as possible. Caleb’s words of warning went through his head.
A little late since he was now bleeding all over the place. It saturated his ugly Hawaiian shirt and the ground around him. And it covered the necravitacon where his father had trapped her centuries ago.
“Nashira,” Nick gasped weakly, hoping this worked and that he could free her before he died, “hear me and step forward. Not in words, this time, but in your woman’s form. The time has come for you to be restored. A favor to a favor. A Malachai once took you from this world, now the time… has come… for a Malachai to return you.” He held the book to his chest and prayed for it to work.
The air whipped around him, like a violent hurricane. Strong and furious. It drove the crows back as a cloud of dark purple smoke rolled out of the grimoire. It rose up into a column by Nick and Aeron’s side.
A pair of perfect lavender eyes formed to stare incredulously at him. The smoke turned into tendrils of long white hair that was fastened with purple flowers bound in flowering ribbons. Then, ever so slowly, the smoke solidified into the rest of her body.
The white crow tengu that his father had captured centuries ago and bound to his service against her will was a lot tinier than Nick had imagined her. More fragile in appearance… especially given her nasty and biting sarcasm. But in reality, she was similar to a tiny, adorable pixie. Like Simi in her real form, she had pointed ears and a pointy chin.
She was so beautiful. In a unique, impish way. How he wished he’d been able to free her in the human realm and not here. But maybe she’d be able to cross over again. Someday.
And at least she again was in her own body.