Sherrilyn Kenyon - Infinity Chronicles of Nick

Her blond hair was slicked back from her face as she approached him slowly like a predator. "You are ever a surprise."

He didn't know what that meant, but he was pretty sure it wasn't a good thing. "What's going on here?"

She gestured to the wall on his right, where a huge monitor was set up and a game was on pause. "Do you know the power of that game?"

"I know the power of all games. They're mesmerizing." His mom called them time-sucks because once you started playing, human concept of time slowed down. What seemed like five minutes of play equaled an hour in real time. Even Menyara had called them a tool of evil.

In this case, she might be right.

Nick saw the dazed look on Tabitha, Madaug, and Eric's faces. "What have you done to them?"

"They're the ones who played." She held a controller out for him. "Don't you want to join them in a match and beat their high score?"

The blob put his hand on Nick's shoulder and pushed him toward the woman. Suddenly, he felt trapped. Stifled.

It was a sensation he'd always hated. And one that ignited his temper.

She took the game off pause. "Look at it, Nicholas."

Nick tried to turn away, but the blob grabbed him and forced him to face it. He slammed his eyes shut. The blob grabbed him from behind and forced his lids open until he had no choice but to watch.

His breathing ragged, Nick struggled as hard as he could, but it was futile.

Before he even realized what he was doing, he was watching the central character—a blond man dressed in a long flowing coat—executing the army of zombies in an old cemetery as the game's mission scrolled across the screen. The impulse to play radiated through him until he had no choice except to obey.

In a world where ancient evil has been unleashed, there is only one hope for mankind.

You.

Your mission is to fight the zombies, humans who ve been turned into mindless killers, through the cemetery to the ancient catacombs where an elixir was hidden long ago by a fair princess. Collect your items of protection and weapons along the way until you are virtually in-destructible.

Your w'ts and your prowess are the only things that cant be taken away. But be warned.

Even those closest to you can be turned and they w'll turn against you while you fight. The only way to power up is to eat the hearts of your enemies and to lay waste to as many as you can. Your experience points w'll dramatically increase the power of your blows.

Good luck, warrior.

May the ancient gods be w'th you.

The lights of the game flashed, entrancing him. Nick struggled to stay alert to everything around him, but he couldn't focus on anything except the main character. It was like the two of them were one. Like he was Necodemus the Necromancer fighting through the ever-growing army of zombies.

Every kill gave him a heart or weapon to collect. Every kill brought him closer to the catacomb....

You are ours, a voice whispered in his ear.

Nick felt himself slipping into a fog. Completely unaware of everything around him, he played the game. It was like he stood on a precipice that allowed him to see straight into infinity. Time slowed and bent, the universe whispered secrets to him.

And with every kill he felt more powerful. More invincible.

You are the Malachai. Those words whispered through his mind as images assaulted him.

Images of him beating down his enemies. Of every bully, every Stone and Mr. Peters in his life getting exactly what they deserved. Not death—that would be too kind for their special breed of brutality—something worse. Much, much worse.

They became him. They were the ones who were mocked and belittled and laughed at, and made to feel like they were less than nothing.

Each and everyone of them. Every insult. Every snide comment and look. It was all returned to them tenfold.

They begged for mercy while he gave to them the same amount they'd given him in his life.

None whatsoever.

Take that, you scum-sucking snipes. Eat your words and your cruelty. May you drown in it and die.

"He's ours now," the mortent leader announced. "Not made by evil, butbirthed by human cruelty." She handed Nick a sword. "Now take your vengeance on the ones who've mocked you. Kill them and eat their brains."

Nick turned to Stone, whose eyes were large and filled with terror. Every nasty comment and insult he'd ever given Nick played through his head now. Right down to Stone getting him thrown off the team. To Stone trying to get him thrown out of school....

Screaming in outrage, Nick ran at the pig so that he could gut him once and for all.

Stone fell back in his cage, screaming like a four-year-old girl who'd lost her favorite toy as he held his arms up to protect himself and beg for his life.

Nick tasted vengeance and honestly...

It was sweet and satisfying.

But it wasn't filling, no matter how much he wanted it to be. In fact, it was hollow and cold.

Even though he tried to tell himself Stone deserved nothing but the humiliation he'd heaped onto others' heads, that he deserved to die for what he'd done to other people, Nick couldn't buy it.

He finally understood what Ambrose had tried to tell him about Mike, Tyree, and Alan.

/ dont want to be like Stone and the others.

To have no friends. No decency. To not be able to enjoy anything because he was too busy being jealous and petty over other people.

Stone was pathetic. He was weak.

Most of all, he wasn't worth Nick damning himself for. In the end, nothing could be crueler-than leaving Stone to live his putrid life of false friends and petty jealousies. Friends who didn't really like him. Who only wanted to use him for what they could get.

Yeah, that was hell on earth and he wanted no part of it. While Nick could be happy wearing used clothes and living in squalor with his mother and Menyara, Stone couldn't be happy in a mansion with every over-priced toy and gadget his parents could give him.

How could Nick ever envy or want that? He doesnt deserve to live. Think of all the others he's tortured. The others hell torture in the future if you let him go-Nick pressed the tip of his sword against Stone's throat as Stone wet his pants and wept.

And still the voice in his head was unrelenting.

Spill the blood of your enemy and you w'll command armies.... You w'll be free.

No one w'll ever mock you again.

Ever.

He felt the cold hand of something evil on the nape of his neck, caressing him. "Do it," a soft, gentle voice urged. "Make yourself strong enough to command the respect of everyone you meet. Then no one will mock you ever again. You have to kill your enemies to have respect and be free of your past."

The mortent was right. The only way to be free was to kill his enemies and bury them deep.

But there was more than one way to slay them. Stone and his kind had already taken up too much of his past. Nick wasn't about to give them his future too.

All of a sudden, the dagger and book in his pocket heated up as something inside him was freed. Not by his hatred. Not by his need for revenge.

It was his sense of justice. A clarity of thought he'd never had before. He didn't want the respect of people who weren't worth wiping his nose on—people who weren't worth the spat-out gum attached to the bottom of his worn-out shoes.

The only respect he wanted was from himself and the people who really mattered in his life. The people who really loved and cared about him.

That definitely wasn't Stone or the mortents or any of the stuck-up snobs in his school or his principal.

It was from his mother and a bunch of Bourbon Street strippers who were raising him to be better. From people like Menyara, Liza, Bubba, and Kyrian.