Sherrilyn Kenyon - Infamous

Not sure what to make of the strange voice, Nick stepped back from it. “I’m not sure how to respond to that. But I do speak English … most days and I understand you and the word ‘hello’.”

“Ah,” the disembodied voice said as if relieved, then he added, “I am speaking English, right?”

Nick scowled. “Um … yeah. Pretty sure.”

“Good. Sometimes it’s hard to tell. Languages come and they go. Sometimes I know them, sometimes—”

“Who are you?” Nick asked, interrupting him. “Where are we?”

“Which is it?” the stranger asked in an exasperated tone. “Who or where? Might as well throw a what in there too, just to hit all the bases. Oh, and I forgot how and why. That is all of them. At least I think it is.”

The voice paused, then counted them off. “Who, what, when, where, how, and why. Yes, that’s all of them,” he said proudly, then his tone turned to one of fretful anxiety. “Though the answer to some of them, I don’t know. Like how did you get here when you don’t know where here is? That’s kind of hard to do, isn’t it? I mean if you went someplace, shouldn’t you know how you got there and then by default, you should know where the where is because you got yourself there. Right?”

Nick felt like he’d blindly stumbled into a Who’s On First skit. Whoever this guy was, he wasn’t firing on all burners. Dude was seriously listing to port and about to capsize.

“Nor do I know why you’re here,” he continued without even stopping to take a breath. “That baffles me, too, if you don’t know where you are. Why would you go someplace when you don’t know where it is? And people call me names. At least I know where I am and who I’m talking to, and I never go anyplace without knowing beforehand where it is I’ve gone. Or at least where I was trying to get to. Except for this one time … we won’t go there. Not because I don’t know where it leads. I do. It leads to a bad memory I’ve no wish to revisit. Kind of like smelly relatives and nasty bosses. I don’t want to revisit them either, unless it’s to give them nightmares. In that case, game on.”

Nick gaped the whole way through his tirade. Yeah … This was the strangest person he’d ever met, and when you took into consideration that the captain of his football team was a werewolf, his boss an immortal vampire slayer who had a ninja-like, knife-wielding housekeeper, his tutor was Death, his best friend a demon, and his girlfriend something else entirely, and then there was the Simi …

Yeah, boy. Nick knew every variation of weird even when it didn’t slap him in the face. Most days, he was drowning in it.

But this guy …

He took weird to a level all his own.

When he finally paused for a breath, Nick quickly interjected, “How about starting with the first and then answering the latter?”

“Why didn’t you say so? I declare … some people are so strange. My name is Asmodeus. And you’re home. Did you not know that?”

Nick scoffed. “Dude, this is not my home. For one thing, my house isn’t this dark, even when my mama gets cheap and refuses to use lights in it. Bourbon Street ain’t ever this dark.”

Asmodeus made a sound of disgust. “Can’t you see in the dark?”

Was the guy totally off his gourd? No one could see in something this dark. “Dang it, Jim, I’m not a bat. I’m a boy.”

“Okay…” he stretched the word out. “My name’s not Jim. I just told you, it’s Asmodeus. And why can’t you see in the dark?”

Obviously not a Star Trek fan. But why would he even begin to think that Nick could see in pitch-black nothing? “Not really.”

“Hmmm. Odd. Okay.” He took Nick’s hand.

Nick pulled back. “Dude, don’t touch me.”

“Why not?”

Why not? Really? He had to explain stranger-danger and personal space? Where did this guy live that he didn’t understand grabbing another dude’s body parts without an invitation was a first class ticket to a major butt-whipping event.

“Look, I don’t know you, and we’re not dating. So keep your hands off me.”

Again with the annoyed noise. “Then how can I lead you if I can’t touch you when you can’t see?”

“How ’bout you don’t lead me anywhere?” Nick was beginning to like the darkness. Unlike Asmodeus, it was quiet and rather peaceful. And it definitely didn’t give him a headache.

“But you said you couldn’t see.”

Nick was aghast at the way this guy’s mind worked. “That doesn’t mean you can touch me.”

“I’m so confused.”

That made two of them. Obviously, this place had a whole different code of conduct than what he was used to.

All of a sudden, someone grabbed Nick from behind and hauled him backward.

“What are you doing here?” the man snarled in his ear.

Anger set fire to Nick’s blood and sent it thrumming through his veins like molten lava. His mother was the only one who used a tone that angry with him.

And occasionally Kyrian.

Menyara and Rosa from time to time. And he really should add Talon, though the Celt did better than most.

His teachers and principal, of course. He definitely couldn’t leave them out..

Yeah, okay, so he ticked a lot of people off. But …

“Dude, I don’t know you. I dang sure don’t have to answer you.”

“Dude,” the voice said in a mocking tone with pauses between the words as the man did a bad Valley girl imitation. “I’m like so gonna kick your annoying ass.”

Nick stiffened as he assumed his Cock of the Walk stance that said he was ready to battle. “I’d like to see you try.”

The man shot through the darkness so fast that Nick didn’t hear or feel him moving until he had Nick by the throat. “Word to the wise, punk. Don’t dare someone until you know who and what you’re dealing with, and what they’re capable of. You’ll live a lot longer, and stay in one piece, if you memorize that. Trust me.”

“Trust you?” Nick choked out through his constricted throat. “I don’t even know what species you are.”

“Precisely my point.” He let go of Nick and stepped back.

One second they were in the dark, in the next, they were inside a room that looked like something out of the Middle Ages. There was a fireplace so big that Nick could easily walk into it and have a spread out brunch for three people. Two comfortable-looking chairs with giant wings were set in front of it, over a lion-skin rug he was pretty sure had blood and bite marks still on it. In the far corner was a black desk that had ornate skeletal carvings on the wood.

And the man …

Not what Nick had expected at all. He looked like a banker or stock broker or something … Normal. Dressed in an elegant navy pinstriped, double-breasted suit, his shirt was crisp and white with a bloodred tie that flashed with something Nick would swear was living skulls inside the fabric. His dark blond hair was slicked back from his handsome face. But it was his eyes that were terrifying. Cold. Merciless. Mean. It was like looking at Death, and since Death tutored him, he ought to know it when he saw it. A frigid green, his eyes were so clear that they gave the illusion of glowing.

Asmodeus was a little more typical. Spiked white hair framed an impish face. His gray eyes showed exactly how mischievous he could be. And he glanced around the room as if he’d never seen it before.

“Who are you ?” Nick asked the man in the suit.

A wry smile curved his lips. “I’ve been called many things by many people. But those who want to live usually refer to me as Thorn. And they do so in a reverent tone.”

Not a soothing name by any means. Ranked up there with the Dark-Hunter named Venom, and Venom was definitely not someone you wanted to mess with, either. “What are you?”