Maybe …
After all, his dad had loved his mother. Maybe that love would overcome Adarian’s innate hatred of him. Miracles were possible.
Nick stood in indecision for several minutes before he decided to take a chance he prayed didn’t come back and bite him on the butt. Like they normally did.
’Cause out of all the idiotic ideas he’d had over the years, this was the granddaddy boss leader.
Power up, bruh.
Closing his eyes, he summoned what little was left of his strength.
“What have you done now?”
Yeah, he’d know that deep, guttural hate-filled tone anywhere.
“Good to see you, too, Dad.”
Adarian materialized so that he could stand there with malevolent red eyes that seared him to the core of his rotten soul. “Didn’t I tell you to watch your mother?”
“You did, and I’m trying.”
“Then why are you trapped here where you can’t help her, huh?”
“I wish I knew.”
Hissing, Adarian took a step forward, then froze. He cocked his head as if he heard something strange. “You have no idea what you’re doing, do you?”
That was one massive understatement of fact. Of course he didn’t. Never had. And at this point, he’d wager that he never would. Least the odds were looking that way.
“Was hoping you’d have some idea on that. I’m thinking we’re in the Malachai’s grimoire. Am I right?”
With a dark scowl, Adarian held his hand up to glare at it as if it were some foreign object. “How is this even possible?”
“Again, clueless. Was hoping you could enlighten me as to what would suck me in here.”
Adarian grabbed him by his arm and yanked him up against his chest. Then flew with him up toward the dark sky.
Nick started to protest, but he was too weak to break his father’s hold. Something that really concerned him. “Hey!”
“Stop struggling!”
Normally, he’d never obey anyone who held him like this, yet there was a note in his father’s voice that said he needed to listen. And when they reached the outer edge of the paper, Nick saw why.
There was a thin membrane that allowed him to see through the worlds in a way he’d have never thought possible.
Similar to Takeshi’s map, this was like a starchart to the multiverse.
Nick gaped as he tried to make sense of it all. “What is this?”
“Everything.” His father’s wings flapped loudly in his ears, rushing a cold wind around them.
“I don’t understand.”
“The grimoire is the lifeblood of our species, boy. It’s all and nothing. What is and was and could be. The darkest of magick, it was forged from the living skin cells of Cam by Lilith during the Primus Bellum and given to Monakribos so that he could defeat the Kalosum.”
Nick groaned in frustration as he tried to follow that. But it still didn’t make sense. “You’ve still lost me on this one, old man.”
Hissing, he spoke to Nick through gritted fangs. “The grimoire is a living book, you imbecile. Made from the flesh of Lilith’s sister. She hated her siblings for what they’d done to her and her children. For the curse they placed on her that turned her children in to monsters, so our book was her revenge on them. Since her children couldn’t attack the Source and lacked the ability to kill them, she was hoping the first Malachai would use her knowledge and its powers against her siblings to destroy them for her.”
