His stomach knotting, Nick gave each one of them a bitter glare as they headed for their next period. “Yes, he did. Because he knows I would not be happy with him if he didn’t. And an unhappy Malachai kicks his culo loco.”
“Well,” Caleb said drily, “we can stand here and argue like children until one of us sticks his tongue out at the other, or you can call him and see. But I’m here to tell you that the Celt did not step foot in that room. I’d have known it. I didn’t even smell him in the building.”
Kody groaned. “I wish you two would lay off the odor thing with each other. Neither of you smell. Good grief.”
Ignoring her chiding, Nick pulled out his phone. “Prepare to eat those words, Caliboo. One slice humble pie coming up, piping hot.” He dialed for his favorite surly war god. Then waited.
And waited.
And waited some more.
It rolled to voice mail.
Okay, that was not good. Scowling, he met Caleb’s smug expression. “Why would he have left when he said he wouldn’t?”
“It’s Aeron.”
“Exactly. He’s not you.” Nick put the phone in his pocket. “He doesn’t know a lot of people here. It’s not like him to run off and visit anyone. Or go trolling after loose women on Bourbon Street … unlike a certain Daeve I know.” He cleared his throat meaningfully.
“You’re just jealous you can’t go into any of those clubs, baby face.”
Luckily, Kody didn’t take him seriously and ignored that jibe. “He has a point, Caleb.”
Caleb sighed. “Yeah, he does. Two, if you count the one on his head, and I hate it. ’Cause if Aeron’s missing, it doesn’t bode well and I’m getting really tired of ill bodings.”
Nick wrinkled his nose at the term. “Ill bodings? Is that a phrase?”
“Of course it is. I just made it up.”
Nick snorted. “Fine. Whatever. We’ve got to find him. If for no other reason, we don’t need him to do something that could out himself in public.”
“Yeah,” Caleb said sarcastically. “They have laws against exposing yourself in public.”
Kody let out a long-suffering sigh. “I think I know now why the gods made the two of you so incredibly hot. You’d be insufferable, otherwise.”
Laughing at her uncharacteristic barb that proved she’d been hanging out with them way too much, Nick paused in the hallway as he saw Nathan walking past them.
A few feet away, Nathan stopped and turned around in a slow circle as he attempted to decipher their misbegotten room numbers and his schedule.
He almost felt sorry for the kid since he still remembered his first days here when he’d been just as lost and confused. The room numbers on the first floor had been arranged by some chaos demon bent on driving the unwary to utter madness. They really made no sense in anyone’s world except whatever drunken lunatic had initially placed them on the doors for some kind of sick mind game.
As much as Nick hated himself for the compassion, he found himself wandering over to the warthog. “You need help?”
“Room 114?” Nathan scratched his head. “Shouldn’t it be right here, between 112 and 115?” He gestured at the red lockers where a door ought to be. “But then I can’t find room 113, either.”
“That’s because 113 is the gym.”
Nathan scowled. “Huh?”
“Exactly. Ours is not to question why. It’s merely to go to class and try not to cry.” Nick laughed at the truly confounded expression on the kid’s face. “Welcome to St. Richard’s of the Severely Dyslexic and Homicidally Crazed. Room 114 is the biology lab. Down the hall, to the right. Next to the bathroom and across from room 130. ’Cause that makes all the sense in the world, to absolutely no-body.”
He shot one brow north.
“Yeah … don’t ask. Logic and sanity waved bye-bye to this place a long time ago. Why you think they call it an institution?”
Nathan laughed. “Guess so. Thanks.”
“No problemo.”
He held his hand out toward Nick. “I’m Nathan, by the way.”
“Nick.” With a slight bit of hesitation, he shook his hand. Though now that he was close to the guy, he didn’t know why he’d been so weird earlier. Nathan seemed okay, except for the fact that he was the same six foot four height and Nick rather liked towering over other people.
He had so little ego in most things that it was the one and only thing he could normally take pride in that no one, other than Acheron, Xev, and Papa Bear Peltier could take away from him. And Acheron and Papa Bear positively dwarfed his Cajun hide. At almost seven feet in height, the two of them were truly giants in the modern world.
Nick squinted at Nathan. There weren’t any horns hiding in that mass of thick dark blond hair. No other warning bells went off as their skin touched. His blue eyes were clear and normal. Intelligent, not demonesque. No diamond-shaped pupils.