Chapter Forty-Six
There was a song by someone in the nineties called “Blood Makes Noise.” Its lyrics talked about the way, when the shit hits the fan, the blood rushes through your ears and you can’t hear anything else. Like when a doctor is telling you that you have cancer. Or a judge is delivering a nasty verdict. Nicholas was familiar with the concept, but he’d never been more under its influence than he was right now.
Nicholas couldn’t hear a goddamned thing. His heart was hammering, and his head was pounding. His body did not want him to do what he was planning to do. But it was their last, best hope. It was Andros’s best hope, Minnaea’s best hope, Adelaide’s. Everyone who mattered.
It was time to end this.
He only prayed he wouldn’t chicken out at the last minute. He needed to remain steadfast and see this through. He needed to put his all into it, or it wouldn’t work.
He reminded himself of this over and over again as the team of them gathered together, and Andros cast up the transport spell. Dannai was there again; it was the Duat, and Amunet was her mother. She needed to be there just in case everything went to hell and mommy woke up. Plus, she was a powerful mage and a werewolf. All the extra muscle, magic or otherwise, they could get was a good thing.
Evangeline was there. He still couldn’t get a fix on her or what she was underneath that beautiful skin, striking eyes, and white hair. But she cared a great deal for the girl who’d been taken. That much was obvious by the state her aura was in at the moment.
Aside from Minnaea, Andros, and Adelaide, the only other person there was Roman D’Angelo. This situation had to do with one of the kings, a king who had yet to officially reclaim his position at the Table of the Thirteen. Roman deserved to be there, but that was where they drew the line now that they knew the Duat didn’t take kindly to living souls crossing its borders.
The portal around them almost groaned, as if it was struggling with its given destination. The colors that swirled around them were brown and tan, the color of sand, and black – the color of darkness. It was wholly unnatural, and Nick had never seen a portal take on that look before. The air in the portal grew dry and smelled like earth.
When the opening appeared, it shrugged slowly, as if pushing against a heavy weight, and Nick had the impression that if they didn’t move through it very quickly, it would close on them, slicing them in two – leaving one half in the Duat, the other in some unknown alternate location.
They must have all had that impression, because almost as one, they crossed the border of the portal and stepped out onto hard, flat stone. The portal instantly shut behind them, snapping closed with the sound of thunder. That, too, it had never done before.
Right away, Nick couldn’t help but wonder if everyone was going to be trapped there on that side of the line between the living and the dead.
The area they’d exited in was massive, and the air echoed through it with a hollow sound. It was all stone, gray and brown, much darker than the environment he’d last witnessed in the Duat. They were standing on a platform that stretched like an outcropping above a massive chasm. Behind them was a solid wall. Ahead of them was a walkway above the chasm no more than a foot wide. It stretched on before them for half a mile, at the least. On either side, it dropped into the dark nothingness that was the place where dead souls ceased to be forever.
Nicholas could see a lone figure on the platform at the opposite end of the narrow bridge, just a small bump in the far distance. He was guessing that was Mimi. Nero was nowhere to be found. At least, that was what it looked like. But now that he thought about it, and given that the Entity was crouching somewhere inside the Challenger like an evil little toad, Nick couldn’t help but wonder if there was a lot more there than was strictly visible. Who knew what powers the Entity was giving Nero? He’d gotten to Mimi, after all. He’d probably been at the school.
That’s it, he thought. This was it. There’s no time better than right here – right now.
He moved to the walkway and stopped just in front of it. Then he looked back over his shoulder at his new queen. Adelaide met his gaze.
Her hair fell in smooth, shimmering waves past her shoulders to her breasts, her cheeks were flushed, her lips were full, and her eyes had amber highlights that hinted at the magic she now had pulsing through her veins. She was stunning in every possible way.
But as she stared up at him, she seemed to suddenly sense the fear he’d been feeling for the last half an hour. She seemed to know, all at once, what was going through his head.
He began to turn back around. Adelaide moved behind him, rushing forward. “Nicholas, no!”
But it was too late.
He was already moving.
Nicholas had only just met Adelaide. However, their souls had been forged from the same Nightmare stuff long ago and sent through time and space to different eras, different places. Somehow they had found one another again.
Nicholas despised fate in that moment.
I love you, he thought, knowing his thoughts to be true. He hoped she could hear him.
Then he jumped. He transformed as he leapt into the air, wings exploding from his back, horns from his head, and fangs piercing his bottom lip. His skin went black as night, and his eyes turned the world into sharp contrasts of black and red.
Once he was high enough, he sent out a pulse of his Nightmare magic. It unwrapped itself from him, a tendril of deep, shimmering black smoke, and whipped down onto the narrow bridge that connected their outcropping to the platform far away.
The dark magic struck the bridge, exploding it into countless fragments of flying rock. Andros moved like lightning, grabbing Adelaide and spinning with her to shield her body with his own. And in that moment of confusion, Nicholas flew away.
He knew that if he wanted to, Roman D’Angelo could follow. The vampire could fly. But he also knew that D’Angelo was not a man to steal another man’s fight. He most likely figured that Nicholas was doing this for a reason. He might not know what the reason is… but he had a feeling Roman was fully aware of the dire depth of his decision.
Behind him, people called out to him. But up ahead, on the platform that was drawing closer, the little dragon girl sat on the ground beside the sarcophagus, her head on her arms, her arms on her knees. She must have heard the commotion, because she looked up and glanced in his direction. When she saw him in the air heading toward her, she jumped to her feet.
“No!” she said at the tops of her lungs. “It’s a trap! Don’t come here!”
But Nicholas already knew it was a trap. He’d known all along. What the little girl didn’t know as that this particular trap was double-sided.
He landed easily on the platform a few feet away from the red-headed dragon and shifted back into his human form. The girl shook her head at him. “You shouldn’t have come,” she said.
“No. You really shouldn’t have,” came the cold affirmation behind him.
Nicholas closed his eyes. He pulled his power inward, coiling it like a spring. He slowly turned around.
Nero Crowley stood before him. But at once, Nicholas could tell it also wasn’t him at all. Not this time. This time, his aura was pure red, shot through with streaks of black lightning like a volcano storm. He was all fury.
All hatred.
This was not Nero. This was the Entity.