Kody hugged her. “We were so worried about you, Simi. We didn’t know he was a D?v, either.”
“Ah, then you all forgiven for almost getting the Simi eaten. See the Simi likes to do the eating. She don’t like to be the eaten. Akri be all unhappy about that, too, ’cause then he be alone and that would just be all tragic. He needs his Simi to keep his heart working.”
Simi paused. “Oh, but the D?v said something before I exploded him. He said that they’s coming and that this time, the Malachai can’t stop them.”
Nick went cold at those words. He met Kody’s frown and then Caleb’s gape. Did that mean that Ambrose had originally stopped whoever was doing this? Or that Ambrose had stopped them in one of his other attempts?
Sick to his stomach and needing air that didn’t reek of dead demon guts, he headed for the door to the back alley.
“Nick?”
He barely registered Kody’s presence. His mind was too busy processing all the possible outcomes that invariably ended with him and everyone else dead in a bombed-out New Orleans.
No longer did he see the old French and Creole buildings around him. He saw the devastation they’d witnessed in the future. The fires. The bodies.
Simi’s son and daughter.
His daughter.
The one he’d been forced to abandon while wounded.
No! It couldn’t end like that.
“Nick?” Kody stepped in front of him and cupped his face in her hands. “Look at me and focus. I know where you are, but you can’t stay there. Breathe.”
His gaze blurry, he looked down at her. “Kyrian’s daughter is named Marissa and she’s blond.”
“I know.”
True panic set in as the full magnitude of everything hit him at once. “Oh God, Nyria … what have I done?”
“You’ve done nothing.”
“But I’m Ambrose.… Or will be.” He choked on a sob. “I am responsible for what happens to all of you.” Tears filled his eyes as he looked at Caleb and Xev. Zavid. Aeron and Vawn and Kaziel.
Unable to stand it, he pulled Kody into his arms and held her as he shook from the weight of his guilt and anguish for things he had yet to do. And for his fear of what he might have already done that would have set it all into motion.
The future was looming and he hated the weight of that guillotine over his head. Forget the sword of Damocles. This was so much worse.
“Maybe the Arelim were right,” he whispered against her hair. “Maybe the only answer is to kill me before I rise.”
“We’ve talked about this. You’ve already risen, Nick,” Caleb reminded him.
“But something drained my powers. We could drain them again and then you could kill me. You said it yourself. It would stop it.”
Xev shook his head. “Doesn’t work that way. Another Malachai would rise. Most likely, your brother.”
“Would that be so bad?”
Caleb choked. “Um, yeah. Lotta bit, as you would say.”
“Why?”
Kody reached up to wipe at the tears on Nick’s cheek. “Because right now, Boo, Madoc’s emotions have been locked away for thousands of years. They’re only just starting to return to him and he can’t cope with it any better than you can. In fact, he’s doing a lot worse.”
“He’s angry and bitter.” Caleb sighed.
Kody nodded. “You will meet him before much longer … or at least you did. But until he is taught compassion—in the future, he has none whatsoever. For anyone or anything. The worst thing you could do would be to give him the power of a Malachai in his current state. To combine that with the blood of a god…”
“World would end a whole lot sooner,” Xev finished for her. “And much more violently.”
Kody rubbed at his arm. “It’s why I haven’t encouraged you to meet him. There’s no need right now. You’ve met D’Alerian, the Dream-Hunter who tends Kyrian when he’s injured?”
“Yeah.”
“That’s exactly what Madoc is like. They’re brothers.”
Nick winced at the memory of the Dream-Hunter who was impossible for humans to see. The only reason he had knowledge of him was because of his Malachai abilities. Whenever a normal human looked at one of their species, their gaze glanced away and registered nothing.
You could walk right into one and not know it.