Monakribos reached into the brown leather pouch at his side that was attached to his sword belt, and pulled out a small silver flask. He held it out toward Nick. “Drink this and I’ll be able to answer any question you have.”
Without thinking, Nick reached for it. Yet the moment his hand brushed the metal, a bad feeling went through him.What are you doing?
You don’t trust anyone.
He never had. And for good reason.
Don’t take candy from a stranger. And for the love of the gods, never, ever accept a treat from a Malachai!
Yeah, that had to be written in the great, grand hall of special stupidity. What kind of friggin’ moron would take anything from a demon and ingest it? For all he knew, it could be anything. Drano. Snot.
Or something a lot worse. After all, drinking blood from a cup was what had gotten Acheron made into a Dark-Hunter and tied to Artemis …
Yeah. Beware the cup.
Holding his hands up, Nick stepped back. “Um, yeah. I don’t think so.”
Monakribos gaped in disbelief, “Pardon?”
“You can pardon all you want to, buddy. Do-si-do, too. Even dance a little Cajun fais do-do and play some zydeco. Changes nothing. There some things Nick Gautier don’t do. Lie to Big Bubba Burdette. Disrespect my mama. Miss any Holy Day of Obligation. Stand behind Acheron’s back at any given time, and enter Kyrian’s bedroom without knocking until he yells at me. And never,ever, will I fight Simi for food or cheat on my girl. Or be one minute late for a date.”
He jerked his chin toward the flask. “And the devil will be eating on some icicles before I take a swig of something a stranger hands to me, especially one of your ilk and out of a magic flask. ’Cause I know what happened to Alice and I don’t mean Cooper. For all I know, you’re gonna roofie me and I’ll wake up naked some place weird, without my clothes, and with some awkward photos posted online that I’ll have to try and explain to my girl and my mama. No thank you, very much. I have little enough dignity as it is. Don’t need any less.”
The demon scowled even more. “Did you suffer a head injury?”
“Probably. Stone’s been known to slam me into a number of lockers at inconvenient times. Wouldn’t be surprised if he knocked out all my brains at some point.”
Monakribos tried to push the flask into his hand. “There’s nothing wrong with the water.”
“Then you drink it, Mister Mad Hatter Rabbit. If you don’t shrink or ’shroom from it, I’ll believe you.”
“What is wrong with you?”
Nick snorted. “Oh, that’s an extremely long,longlist. At least according to my guidance counselor. I start naming everything off and we’ll be here all day.”
The Malachai rolled his eyes. “Do you want answers or not?”
“I do.”
“Then drink it.”
Yeah, right … Nick had missed his stupid pills that morning.
All of them.
There was no way he was about to cooperate on this. “Nah, that’s all right. I’d really rather put my head in a blender and turn it on liquify.” And his dander was seriously kicking up, along with his Cajun obstinance and even more suspicion. “You an all-powerful beastie. Why do I have to drink that for you to answer a simple question? Seriously, bruh. That don’t even make sense in my mind.”
In fact, it only made him angrier. The color on his own skin darkened as his eyes began to glow. He could actually feel his eyes radiating. No doubt they now matched Monakribos’s.
Nick was so distracted by his fury that he failed to notice that the Malachai had summoned a few “friends” to join their party.
Friends who’d surrounded him and were now taking up positions that were less than nice. In fact, they grabbed him and pulled him toward the ground.
Growling, he fought against them as hard as he could.
“Hold him! We need to get the water down his throat!”
Nick’s eyes flared even more at those words.I knew it!He didn’t know what water was in that flask or why it was important, but …
