Nix steeled his spine. He repeated his new mantra.
Anything for Mads
. As he laid lash after lash against his victim—abhorring the tug and slide of the flesh against the whip—a vital piece of his soul died as his victim cried and pleaded for clemency.
Hell never granted mercy.
The condemned screamed for a long, long time beneath Nix’s tutelage, and he hated himself. Hated what he would become.
Chapter One
Four months after Nix’s descent into Hell
Chattanooga, Tennessee
“What the hell is going on, Zen?” Madison turned her computer around on the coffee table so the screen would face him. The headlines on Google News detailed the perplexing deaths of birds that fell from the sky, dead from internal trauma, and not a hailstorm anywhere in their flight path. Two days before fish had bellied up on the banks of the Mississippi River, leaving scientists baffled by the cause. “Are you sure Micah doesn’t have the power to do that?”
Petra walked up behind Zen and peered at the monitor over his shoulder. “Daddy’s power isn’t like that. I know of no demon that can create this type of havoc.”
Madison groaned her frustration and craned her head back against the cushions of the couch. Things had been wonky for over a month. A hundred thousand cats converged on a mall in the middle of the day in Arkansas, all of them hissing and growling at the customers before the felines keeled over dead from organ combustion. The news had captured the oddity on video and it’d been a huge WTF moment for them all.
Madison and her entourage, as Nix had once called them, investigated the bizarre occurrence and came up empty-handed. Nothing pinged hers or Petra’s supernatural radars, confirming demons weren’t involved, or both of them would’ve picked up on the distinct signature. Amos’s prophecies failed, giving no hint as to whom or what could be involved. Even Nix’s psychic aunt, Georgie, was confused.
Other weird stuff included world-wide seismic activity where fault lines didn’t exist. Old Faithful in Yellowstone National Forest geyser failed to blow on schedule, terrifying most of the nation into a panicked evacuation for fear the super-volcano beneath the park would erupt and wipe out half of the United States. A full moon appearing on a half-moon night had the doomsday zealots hysterical.
Zen’s declaration that the occurrences were biblical irritated Madison since it agreed with the doomsayers. The fanatics shouldn’t be fed. She couldn’t halt the progress of holy matters. There would be no point in saving Nix from Hell if the world was pitched on global annihilation anyway.
Zen proclaimed these occurrences weren’t part of God’s plan. When asked how he knew, he grew pensive and moody, cautioned her not to delve too deep and to trust him. She trusted him, but knowing he withheld something vital rankled, especially so when she preferred having all the facts.
“Are you just going to stare at that, Zen, or offer some comment? Dear God!” She jumped off the sofa and stalked across the room. No one had died from these catastrophes—at least not yet—but the very real fear that whatever controlled these anomalies would soon escalate to human victims, burned like acid in her belly.
“At least give us some idea of where to start looking.” Alessa, ever ready to help save Nix from Hell, turned the TV to Fox News. The newscaster speculated with a local bird expert on the likely possibilities of their deaths.
“I already told….” Zen bolted out of his seat and strode toward Madison.
She stopped her pacing and faced him. “What is it?”
“We gotta go.”
Zen’s hand touched her arm, and Madison didn’t even get the word ‘wait’ out before rainbow orbs–the visible proof of Zen’s teleportation—coalesced around her. Zen teleported Madison to the Gulf Coast. Its sandy white beaches were heavily populated with homes and beachgoers.
“I’m sorry, Madison.” Zen aligned his chest against her spine, clasped her wrists, and snatched her arms up, palms facing the ocean. “Focus on Pandora.”
“Wait! No!” Her stomach heaved violently, as she swallowed back the bile, panic surging hard. Tapping into the loathsome power contained in Pandora’s Box, when Madison could barely hold it in restraint, terrified her. “Let’s talk about this first, Zen.”
“No time. Do as I say or thousands will die.”
The urgency in his voice stifled any other questions or concerns. Madison dragged in a deep breath, shaking all over. Over the last four months Zen had been teaching her how to contain the foreign host, probably lending her a false sense of safety knowing he could restrain the entity if it took over. She slowly exhaled and attempted to manage Pandora’s magic, visualizing one bubble of power at a time bursting to the surface. But in the best-case scenario, that would be next to impossible without Zen’s assistance. Without his aid, she couldn’t be positive of her ability to contain Pandora. She figured she’d have a better chance of stopping a runaway train with dental floss.
Too slow
. Zen’s telepathic voice touched hers, and he took control.
The rancid magic vibrated on her tongue like metal and dirt, twitched her nerve endings and surged through her. With a cry of pain, she went ramrod-straight and lost her muscle function as Zen finagled the mojo while holding her steady.
Aware of everything, but unable to direct anything, Madison put her faith in Zen as he whispered commands.
“Focus on the horizon. A tsunami approaches. I’ve balanced the power. I need you to throw another tsunami at it to halt it in the Gulf of Mexico.”
Or maybe he spoke in her head. She wasn’t certain, and she didn’t care. She nodded once and focused on grafting a tsunami wall in her mind. Nothing visible occurred, just the liquid presence of a magical tidal wave. She shoved her creation out over the sea and with a wobbly, untrained ghostly eye she followed its path across the span of water.
The two walls of water—one spectral, the other real—came together and exploded like a bomb. Beachgoers hit the sand and screamed as a visible geyser spewed upward toward the sky. Wind whipped her hair and saltwater sprayed her face as Zen cooed words she failed to recognize. For all her knack with tongues, she’d repeatedly failed to pick up his language.
“Excellent job, Madison. Now, pull it back.”
Madison cried as she wrestled with the force in her head. The entity didn’t want to be controlled, but desired freedom.
Madison
, Pandora murmured,
we work well together. We can make this work
.
She shook her head against the alien voice.
Zen would never approve
!
Pandora latched onto that weakness.
Keep just a smidge of me out. You never know when you’ll need my help
.
“Don’t listen to her, Madison.”
“My head is going to split.” White exploded behind her eyes, wiping out her sight, a direct attack from Pandora. In a piercing buzz, her hearing went next.
Zen jerked her around in his arms, but she went down, thankful for the blackness that consumed her pain.
***
“My tsunami’s been attacked.” Nix stooped and submerged his hand in the warm sand. A moment later a bang louder than the breaking of the sound barrier vibrated the earth and a mile-high wall of water torpedoed into the air.
“Excellent job in any event, Phoenix.” The resonance of a smile put a growl in Micah’s voice, probably because Nix hadn’t flinched at killing innocent mortals.
Anything for Mads
.
Sifting sand through his fisted palm, Nix tapped into his destroyed magic. The taste of the opposing force coated his mind and he looked up at Micah. “Mads?” He stood quickly and scanned both directions of the beach as people screamed and fled in chaos. “I feel Mads in the opposing energy.”
Micah glared at the disintegrating wall of water, his expression turning homicidal. “I know of one power capable of combating yours.” The sea misted his face and Mads’s presence grew stronger in his mind.
“Pandora’s Box.”
“But Mads….”
“The Box would’ve reverted to Zennyo Ryuo’s control upon her death. Pandora most likely still wears the scent of Madison’s soul.”
Nix shook his head. That explanation didn’t feel right. “I’m telling you, it’s
her
texture. Not Pandora.” He would recognize the difference.
“Madison’s dead, Phoenix. You’re mistaken.” He turned and opened a shimmery portal only the two of them could see. “Let’s regroup and—”
With a hand on Micah’s arm, Nix stopped his departure. A muscle in the King’s jaw throbbed, but Nix refused to back down. “I spent five years breathing her in, worshiping her, adoring her, wanting her. I learned everything about her, the small details, like how she bites her bottom lip when she’s nervous. The way her breath stutters when I kiss her. The small strangled sound she makes right before she climaxes.” Micah’s eyes widened before narrowing. “I
know
her scent. I
know
what she tastes like. Every power has a particular sensation to it.” Micah couldn’t discern between powers. They’d discovered that talent was unique to Nix. “I sampled Mads’s mojo when you came for me in the hotel room, both sides of it, her succubus”—it’d been muted—“and later mixed with Pandora. I’m telling you, she was distinctly wrapped up in that power just now.” Nix motioned to the ocean.
Micah’s forehead was gouged with lines as he contemplated the horizon. A moment later, the King’s fingers fisted in Nix’s cotton shirt and yanked him closer. “Madison and Amos are the two most important beings in this universe to me. I had to watch that goddamn immortal blast her with his magic while I could do nothing to save her. You cannot imagine how that feels.”
“Don’t I? I remember trying to save her from you more than once and failing every goddamn time.”
“She died, Phoenix,” Beliel said between clenched teeth. “I don’t wish to relive it.”
“If her life is covenanted to yours as you claimed, why aren’t you dead now? Or at the very least suffering? It’s been four months, Micah.” Nix gripped his demonic friend by the back of the neck. “Four months, and you’ve suffered no ill effect.” The King said nothing, just clasped Nix’s face between his hands as he went on. “I believe she lives. It won’t hurt to investigate. What do we have to lose? We’ve both already lost the most important woman in our lives. The worst that can happen is I’m wrong. The best,
we
regain her.”
“If she’s alive, I won’t share her.”
“You will share her, my friend.” If he didn’t, Nix would start a revolt in Hell to make the battle in Heaven which led to the angel’s fall look like a military standoff. “If Mads is alive, challenging Zen directly will draw her out.”
The King’s eyes ignited and his slow smile would’ve chilled a normal soul. Nix found comfort in it because he recognized it as a call to action. “You have a suggestion?”
“Yes.”
Micah ran his thumb over Nix’s bottom lip. “You might be the best demon I ever created.”
Nix grinned at the compliment.
Chapter Two
Madison blinked and groaned at the too-bright glare of the sun peeking through the curtains. The hammering in her head had her biting back vomit. At this rate, Zen’s stunts would kill her before she got a chance to save Nix.
“We’ve got problems.” The sound of Zen’s voice stabbed against her temple.
“No kidding,” she whispered, but the tempo sounded way too loud. “And please don’t yell.” Madison rolled onto her side and pulled the spare pillow over her head with a groan, muscles aching from the movement. If she didn’t know better, she’d conclude she’d taken on a recently launched NASA rocket and lost.
“I’m speaking normal.” He tugged the pillow off her head. “We must talk now.”
“My head is splitting open. Can’t it wait?”
“The world has already split open.”
How long had she been out? Shouldn’t she be dead if the world came apart? Shouldn’t they
all
be dead?
Her eyelids snapped open, and she stared at the immortal. Zen stood beside her bed, returning her scrutiny. No emotions touched his silver eyes or his features. His dark hair lay in disarray over his forehead.
“Split open how, Zen?”
“A sinkhole consumed part of a neighborhood in Birmingham, Alabama.” Madison pushed into a seated position and swallowed back a surge of bile the movement caused. “There is a home located at the center of the sinkhole, surrounded by a two-hundred-foot chasm.”
“Like a moat?”
“Yes. The house remains untouched. The residents were slaughtered. Outside, on the vinyl siding, written in the family’s blood was: ‘Catch us if you can, Zenny.’”
Madison felt the blood leave her face. Birmingham, Alabama…Nix’s last name and her home state. It had to be a coincidence. “Nix didn’t do that. He can’t. He wouldn’t.”
“He’s the only person ever brave enough to call me Zenny.”
She fought not to puke from the pounding in her head. This news didn’t help her upset stomach either. “Maybe Micah knows that and is baiting you.”
“I’m definitely being baited. Prepare yourself, Madison.” Unblinking, he sat beside her and the bed dipped.
“Prepare for what?”
“The sinkhole was supernatural in origin but not demonic.”
Madison leaned against the headboard and closed her eyes. Inside, her succubus prowled, needing sustenance. That’d grown common after each Pandora session. She hadn’t come right out and told Zen that her demon grew stronger after Micah’s last feeding in the hotel room, but she suspected he knew anyway. How could he not know when he spent so much time in her head wrangling Pandora under control?
“Nix doesn’t have supernatural powers, Zen. He couldn’t be involved.”
“Don’t delude yourself. The message implies involvement even if he cannot incite supernatural occurrences. And don’t forget Crow’s warning that he would fall in Hell.”
She opened her eyes. The supernatural creature Crow that’d visited her five years ago had prophesized a lot and none of it good. Crow had warned not only would Nix go to Hell, he’d become a willing participant of its vileness.