Invision - Sherrilyn Kenyon Page 0,38
froze as he realized something. “Holy crap, Caleb! You’re my uncle.”
He curled his lip in that surly way only Caleb could manage. “No!”
Kody laughed. “It’s worse. He’s the half-brother of your great-grandfather.”
Caleb glared at her. “You’re not helping.”
“No, but I’m entertaining myself at your adorable expense.”
Nick snickered. “Yeah, y’all are missing the important fact. To a Cajun, that makes him my uncle.”
“Great. I always wanted to be a monkey’s uncle. Nice to know I finally succeeded.”
“Now, why you want to go and hurt my feelings?”
“Mostly ’cause I can’t break any of your bones or feed off your blood.” He got up. “C’mon, sport. Let’s go see if Menyara has any insight into this.”
“Sure thing, Uncle Cay.”
“Ah gah,” he groaned. “Don’t call me that. It could cause an involuntary reaction.”
“Such as?”
“Repeat stabbing.”
“When did this escalate to violence?”
Caleb arched a brow. “Remember our earlier encounter with Bubba’s father? He called me an Esme Daeve?”
“Yeah. What of it?”
“They’re the rage Daeves, Nick.” Kody stood up. “Much like a Malachai, they live in a state of perpetual ire, and are always looking for a fight or are trying to start one.”
Caleb nodded.
“That explains so much about your personality.”
“Yeah. I’m just like you. Irritating from my first breath to my last.” Caleb clapped him on the back so hard, Nick stumbled. “Good to be alive.”
“I really need a book on this. I miss my grimoire girl.”
Kody frowned. “Where’s Nashira?”
“Don’t know. Both her and Aeron have abandoned me. I haven’t seen either one in forever.”
Caleb passed an irritated grimace to Kody. “Define forever. Three hours or three days?”
That tone pissed him off. “Two days on Shira. And you knew about Aeron.”
Caleb cursed. “I didn’t know he was the second one to go missing.”
“Third if you count Dagon.”
Caleb literally froze. He was so still that for a moment, Nick thought someone had cast a spell on him.
But after a few heartbeats, he blinked and turned toward the two of them. “Let me get this straight. Dagon, Aeron, and Nashira are all AWOL? At the same time?”
“Yes.”
“And you just now thought to mention this?”
“Didn’t think it was that important. I assumed they’d be back.”
At least Kody appeared as confused by Caleb’s overreaction as he did. “What is it, Caleb?”
“Aeron wouldn’t have just taken off. Not if he had an assignment. Same for Nashira. She doesn’t have family or friends here. It doesn’t make sense that they’d head out alone like that. I would have been more vigilant going after Aeron, but I don’t dare leave Nick alone while he’s like this, because you and I know what happens when he’s left to his own defenses. As for Dagon … Dagon’s a bit more flaky. He might be visiting family on Olympus, but it’s still not like him to not check in.”
Kody bit her lip as she turned back to Nick. “Are you still having visions?”
“Kind of, but they’re weird. Not like the usual ones.”
Caleb ground his teeth. “Get Xev,” he said to Kody. “Meet us at Menyara’s shop.”
Inclining her head, she vanished.
Nick was about to ask what Caleb was thinking, but before he could, Caleb took his arm and flashed them to Menyara’s lapidary on St. Philip.
For the first time since his powers had come in, the trip nauseated him. Badly.
No sooner had they appeared in the back courtyard than Nick had to make the mad dash to the nearest bush and fertilize it.
Caleb made his own set of noises in response. Unlike Kody and Nick’s mom, Cay had a sympathetic gag reflex. Which made no sense whatsoever to Nick given the fact that Caleb was a battle-hardened demon overlord who’d marched his army over the crushed bones of his enemies. Entrails, blood, brain matter, none of that bothered Caleb.
But you let a little bile up, and it was over.
Nick was on his knees, gasping for air and unable to control himself.
Still making a face at Nick, Caleb looked like he was about to join him at any second. “You okay?”
“Yeah. Whatever I got into I want to return. This is crap.”
“Just make sure you keep it over there.”
Nick rolled his eyes. “You’re such a baby.”
“Don’t make me zap you while you’re sick, Gautier. You know I will.”
He would threaten to zap him back, but right now, he wasn’t sure he could make good on that threat. So he kept his mouth shut and stumbled toward the door.
No need to aggravate the devil when all you could do was upchuck on his shoes.
And speaking of … a part