Sherrilyn Kenyon - Invincible

Nick gaped, impressed by his friend’s psychic demon powers. “Man, I’ve got to learn how to do that. But I should probably mention that this will out us faster than my using an arm that’s supposed to be injured.”

Caleb grumbled before he returned the broken doors and enough of the damage that it would look like normal cleaning. “By the way, I got a strange call this morning.”

“From?”

“New football coach.”

Nick scratched his chin at that news. “Dude, that was fast.”

“Tell me about it. He said it was because of the state finals that the school called him up and offered him the job yesterday afternoon.”

Nick let out a low whistle. They’d barely allowed the old coach to get booked for killing their principal before they’d hired his replacement. That was so cold. “What else did he say?”

“He asked me if I knew you. Since we’re down about half the team due to the zombie attack, he needs replacement players.” Caleb inclined his head to Nick’s arm. “I told him you were injured and couldn’t play. He said at this point, he’d take a couple of benchwarmers just to fill out the roster and jerseys so that we wouldn’t have to forfeit the play-offs.”

“I can definitely warm a bench. It’s what my mom says I’m best at anyway.”

“What the—? How you get in here?”

They both turned to see Bubba staring at them from the curtain.

Caleb indicated Nick with his thumb. “Nick let me in.”

“In how?” Bubba rushed to the doors to make sure they were still chained closed.

“I squeezed in through the opening. I’m like a mouse. Doesn’t take much room for me.”

Bubba gave him a suspicious grimace. “Don’t do that again. You could have broke something, and then your parents would have sued me.”

“Sorry.”

Bubba glanced around the cleaned-up store before turning his attention to Nick. “Good job, snotnose. Looks great in here.”

“Caleb helped.”

“Way to pitch in and get things done. Now, if I could get Mark to put down his phone and stop taking breaks, we’d be able to finish up before Oprah comes on.”

Caleb exchanged an amused grin with Nick. “Bubba, what are you going to do when they cancel her show?”

“Shut your mouth, boy. That’s sacrilege in this store. You talk like that, and I’ll toss you through the window like an old-timey hobo in a Western.”

Caleb took a step back. “Given that I was almost roasted alive in your SUV last night, I don’t want any more injuries for a while if I can help it.”

Bubba pointed at him. “Remember that.” Then he turned around and left them.

Caleb shook his head. “That is the strangest man.”

“Tell me about it.”

When Caleb moved closer, the pendulum began to heat up. So much so that Nick hissed in pain. He pulled it out.

Caleb’s eyes flashed to their bright yellow orange demon snake form. “Where did you get that?”

A cold lump settled deep in Nick’s stomach as he contemplated what that reaction meant. “I was told it would protect me from evil. Why did it react to you, Caleb? What are you not telling me?”

No sooner had he asked the question than he saw an image flash through his mind.

It was a vision of Caleb killing him.

“What are you doing, Ambrose?”

Ambrose moved away from his black scrying mirror that he’d been using to watch the past unfold in an entirely new direction. With the flick of his hand, he laid it down on his ornately carved black desk and covered it with a black silk cloth as he confronted the last being he wanted to deal with.

Savitar.

Born to be a fail-safe to the gods who might abuse their powers, Savitar was one of the very few creatures taller than Nick. Dressed in a pair of white cargo pants and an open light blue cotton shirt, Savitar smelled like a sunny day at the beach. Normal for him, since he lived on a vanishing island, where he spent the better part of his days surfing. His dark hair held highlights from the sun, and his face had at least three days’ growth of whiskers around his goatee. Because of his ancient age—he was born not long after the dawn of time—and his omnipotent powers, Savitar was used to people wetting themselves the moment he entered a room.

Ambrose wasn’t most people, and it’d been centuries since Savitar had frightened him even a little. Stepping away from his desk, he went to pour himself a drink.

Not wine or water, but rather the chilled blood of a perityle demon. Vintage age and packed full of the nutrients he needed to live.

That was if anyone was dumb enough to qualify his current existence as living.

Ambrose took a drink and savored it. Not quite as satisfying as when the demon had begged to have his life spared, but still fresh and heady. A slight smile quirked his mouth as he remembered killing the demon. He’d never understood how creatures who were so brutal and merciless to others expected someone else to show them the pity they’d been unable to dispense to their victims. A peculiar hypocrisy, to be sure. “Since when do I answer your questions?”

Savitar’s expression would have terrified the gods themselves. But since Ambrose was their scourge, it had no effect on him whatsoever. “You are tampering with powers you don’t understand.”

Ambrose raked a glare from the top of Savitar’s windswept hair to the bottom of his bare feet. “I find that funny as hell coming from you .”

“Yeah, and when I did it, I almost destroyed the world.”

The irony here was that Ambrose was actually trying to save it. He already knew how the world would end. The date, the moment. The screams of the humans as they realized it was all over and everything they’d once valued was now completely worthless …

That no amount of begging or bartering could help them.

Time was drawing close. He could feel the last of his humanity leaving him with the tick of every passing second, and when it did …

The world was doomed. There was no longer anyone who could stop him.

Not even Savitar.

“I know what I’m doing.”

Savitar ground his teeth. “No, Nick, you don’t.”

Nick. Savitar was the last of those who used his real name anymore, and the Chthonian did so only when he wanted to get Ambrose’s full attention.

Ambrose glanced back to where his black mirror lay covered, and he remembered how things had been when he was a boy. If he could just go back …

For one tiny nanosecond.

The smallest decisions made had such profound repercussions. One ten-minute wait could save a life.

Or end it.

One wrong turn down the right street or one seemingly unimportant conversation, and everything was changed. It wasn’t right that each lifetime was defined, ruined, ended, and made by such seemingly innocuous details. A major life-altering event should come with a flashing warning sign that either said ABANDON ALL HOPE or SAFETY AHEAD. It was the cruelest joke of all that no one could see the most vicious curves until they were over the edge, falling into the abyss below.

As Ambrose started away, Savitar grabbed his arm and pulled him to his side. His lavender eyes flared to a deep red. “You are awakening powers and bringing new players into your past. Players whose actions none of us know. You asked me yesterday about Nekoda.… You don’t remember her, because she wasn’t originally in your past. It’s your meddling now that took her to your door when you were a kid. And she’s not the only one. Don’t you understand? Your father was supposed to die before you hit puberty. That is the natural order, and that event was imperative for your growth and safety. Now he’s alive when he shouldn’t be, and you’re amassing powers at an age when—”