Styxx looked at him with a fierce grimace. “Ambrose? What did they do to you?”
Nick laughed. “I’m not Ambrose yet. I’m Nick from high school.”
“Where’s Neria?”
Nick glanced to Alura before he answered. “She’s been taken.”
“By whom? Where?”
“We don’t know. But we’ll find her.” Nick wished he felt as confident as he sounded.
“The who part,” Alura said, “was Cyprian. I’ve no idea where they might be.”
“But you can find out.”
Nick arched a brow at Styxx’s words. “What?”
“Reach out to Neria like you used to. She’ll respond.”
It took Nick a second to realize that Styxx was talking about his future self. “I never reached out to her.”
Styxx opened his mouth, then closed it as a giant red bird flew down between them.
It transformed into an elegant young woman. “Malachai,” she said as if she were in a trance. “I have your loved ones, and I look forward to killing them again.” Then she began to scream.
Nick recognized that as Kody. “Stop it!”
“If you want me to stop torturing them, renounce your powers to me.”
He started to argue that he couldn’t do that. Then he remembered when his father had died.
Adrian had passed his powers to Nick so that he could save his mom. So, it could be done.
However, there was one problem. He didn’t know how, and he couldn’t relinquish them so long as Cyprian held them.
“You have to let my family go first.”
Kody’s scream echoed louder.
“Stop! Don’t hurt her. Tell me where to meet you.”
“Come inside.”
Said the spider to the fly … Nick had always hated that tale. Now, he hated it even more as it echoed in his head.
The woman returned to being a red bird and flew off.
He glanced at Styxx. “You think Cyprian knows you’re cured?”
“I don’t know. Want me to pretend I’m still enchanted?”
“Can you?”
Styxx returned to being obnoxious and going for Nick’s throat.
Then he stopped and returned to normal. “Pretending I want to kill you is easy. You dated my daughter.”
“I married your daughter.”
