Sherrilyn Kenyon - Invincible

But one day …

He would pay back everyone they’d ever taken a nickel from.

There’s no way the coach knows about that. Because the guilt was so harsh over it, Nick rarely thought about it, and he’d never once, ever told a single soul outside of Tyree and Alan, who’d been there for it. Since they didn’t go to school, the coach couldn’t have talked to them.

He doesn’t know.

Yet somehow, he’d singled Nick out of the herd for this awful plan of his. Looking back at the list, he cringed. The coach wanted something from almost everyone in his first two periods.

What an odd assortment, though. Watches, rings, necklaces, and two hairbrushes. Why hairbrushes? How could the coach get any money from that?

His phone rang, startling him. Trying to calm himself, he answered it.

It was Caleb. “Where’s Menyara?”

“Next door with my mom, why?”

“Do me a favor and go stay with them.”

“Any particular reason?”

“Yeah. I just crossed paths with a Fringe Guard.”

Nick frowned at a term he didn’t understand. “A what?”

“Fringe Guard,” Caleb repeated. “They’re bounty hunters who go after other preternatural beings. In this case, he’s seeking a demon who’s hiding in the body of a kid.”

“What’s that got to do with me? I have a demon hanging near me”—Caleb—“but not one in me.”

Aggravation was thick in his tone. “He was searching for a fourteen-year-old boy, Nick. I think we now know who killed those other teenagers that you and Ash saw.”

A tremor of fear went down his spine. Had the demon been in them, or had he merely tried to get inside them? “But I’m not possessed.”

Caleb cursed. “Would you stop arguing with me, Nick, and just do it? These aren’t the kind of creatures you want to meet on your own, and where there’s one, there’s usually more, and they’re not known for their mercy or humanity. So do what I said and don’t be alone. The last thing I want is for you to be interrogated by one.”

“Why?”

“Nick, I swear … stop acting like a three-year-old at bedtime and haul ass next door or I’m coming over there and dragging you myself, and you won’t enjoy the experience.”

“All right. Calm down. Put your horns in. I’m headed over.” He hung up the phone. Unlike Caleb, he wasn’t sure Mennie was strong enough to fight something like that. While she was a voodoo priestess with some rather impressive skills, he didn’t want to put her in harm’s way. However, she did have a lot of protection symbols in her home. Least he could do was make use of them.

Tucking his arm back into the sling, he got up and went for the door.

He walked outside, then shut and locked the door. Wrinkling his nose, he curled his lip. Ew! What was that godawful smell? It was rotten eggs mixed with fertilizer and a dash of vomit. Gah, it smelled like Stone had another accident in Chem class. He pressed his hand to his nose and started for Mennie’s.

But the moment he did, a shadow fell over him and he was grabbed from behind.

Cursing, Nick spun around, ready to brawl. Then he froze in place and blinked twice just to make sure he wasn’t hallucinating.

He wasn’t.

Tall, shaggy haired, and swathed in flannel and jeans, Mark, who was again drenched in the smell of duck urine, stood on the stoop like a hyena with a broken laugh track. “Boy, you should have seen the look on your face. I ain’t seen you that floppy rabbit scared since you were trying to get into the store before the zombies ate your brains. Oh my God. If I’d had a camera on you, I’d have made a fortune.”

Incensed over the needless scare the idiot had given him, Nick glared at him. “You dickhead! You’re not funny.”

“You’re right about that. Funny is you, boy.” He continued laughing until Nick was ready to kick him where it would leave a lasting impression. It was a good thing he owed Mark, or he would definitely give into that urge.

Nick growled low in his throat. “What are you doing here anyway, besides stinking up my porch and skinning a decade off my life?”

Mark wiped at his eyes. “ Lo siento about the u-rine, mi amigo, but better safe than sorry when in the swamp. That’s my motto.” He finally stopped grinning and got down to business. “I saw that you’d called, and I was trying to call you back, but my battery went dead. So I went to car charge it. Unfortunately, I’d used the car charger to tie my glove box closed, which frayed it, and when I plugged it in to use it, it started a small electrical fire in the Jeep, which ignited a stack of papers and burned out the whole passenger seat before I could douse it with enough Coke to put it out—that stuff’s not as good at putting out fires as you’d think … Well, anyway, here I am. What did you need?”

Only Mark or Bubba could set their car on fire with a battery charger. Nick would laugh at it if it wasn’t so ( a ) typical of their luck and ( b ) pathetic.

“Um yeah, about that…” Nick scratched at his arm that was in the sling. “I took care of it already.”

Mark actually pouted. “You telling me I burned up my Jeep for no good reason? Dude, that sucks. At least tell me there was a zombie at your door or something trying to kill you.”

“No. Sorry.”

Mark muttered under his breath.

But as Nick stared at Mark’s Jeep, which had burn marks on the passenger-side window, a weird thought occurred to him. This might be the one person, aside from Caleb, who could really help him in this.

At least he was the one person insane enough to try. Everyone else would try to talk sense into him.

Mark was also the one person, aside from Mennie and Caleb, he knew could keep him safe from any preternatural attack. In fact, Mark lived to fight off anything he perceived as not human.

“You wouldn’t want to do a little recon with me, would you?”

That perked Mark up. “What kind of recon?”

“Well … it’s what I was calling you about. I have a teacher at school who is a strange enigma.”

One of Mark’s eyebrows shot north. “How so? Like zombie enigma or normal enigma?”

“I don’t think he’s a zombie.” However, he wouldn’t rule anything out at this point. Psycho was the best bet. Still, this was New Orleans and he was learning real fast about a whole crop of residents that he’d never suspected existed before. So the coach could be some kind of zombie he knew nothing about.

And to think, six months ago, he’d thought Mark and Bubba were the most bizarre residents in Louisiana.

How soon everything changes.

Now, they should be so lucky.

Nick brought his attention back to the discussion at hand. “He told me he’s taught at a bunch of schools, but Madaug can’t find anything on him. And I mean nothing . Not a single school where he’s taught or anything else. It’s like he never existed until my school hired him.”

“Neo-Luddite.” Mark nodded in approval. “I like that. Could just mean the man has a brain. I’m telling you, Nick, we’re all going to get hooked into a massive server one day and become nothing but bytes in a data stream. Even our primal, individualistic essence will be reduced to simple binary code. Could have already happened and all we are now are play actors in a Rod Serling episode on permanent syndication. In fact—”

Nick snapped his fingers in front of Mark’s face. “Can you come back to reality with me for a second? I kind of need you here on earth for a few minutes more.”

“Sure. Not that I like it here, since I’m still waiting for my mother ship to return. But … what do you need?”