Nick wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or not. But either way, he wanted to know exactly what was going on and what he was up against.
Ambrose faced him. “This isn’t my first rodeo, but it is most definitely the last. You, Nick, are the only hope I have of getting it right. I’ve tried three times before this and each one was worse on the outcome than the last. When I started tampering with our lives, I had more humanity in me. I’ve all but lost it now. My last attempt burned out something inside me, and I’ll be honest, it scares me. And I don’t scare. Ever. Not after everything I’ve been through. But the degree to which I don’t care anymore—about anything—is a frightful thing. At times, I want it all to end. Because when it does, my pain will stop and I’ll have some degree of peace. Finally. It’ll seriously suck for everyone else. But like I said, I’m to the point where I really don’t care anymore. I’m holding on to my humanity by the thinnest thread imaginable, and any day now, I expect it to break. God help us all when it does.”
A chill went down Nick’s spine. He didn’t want the bleak, lonely future Ambrose described. Most of all, he didn’t want to become Ambrose. While he was jaded and suspicious by nature, there was still a part of him that honestly believed people were good and decent. Most of them, anyway.
He glared at Ambrose as he absorbed those words. “Then why should I listen to anything you tell me? For all I know, you’re setting me up so that you can have your peace and end the world.… And what do you mean you’ve tried three times? How?”
“I forgot how ADD I once was.” Ambrose shook his head. “No wonder Kyrian was so sharp with me so many times.” He took a deep breath before he answered Nick’s question. “I’ve mentored three different Nicks before you. Four if you count my original childhood.”
“Ooooriginal?” He dragged the word out as that thought played through his mind. Did that mean…?
Ambrose let out another bitter laugh. “My life was slightly different from yours. Not much. Little things. But it’s those little things that can make a huge difference in what happens to us later.”
Yep, it was exactly what he’d suspected. And that truthfully terrified him.
Never underestimate a man’s ability to screw up the best laid plans—that was one of his friend’s favorite sayings.
“Such as?” Nick asked.
“The first attempt I made at correcting the past, I had Nick tell our mother about the Dark-Hunter world as soon as he was dragged into it.” He winced as if the memory was unbearable. “I really thought that was the perfect solution. I did. All these years, I kept telling myself that if only she’d known about the paranormal, she’d have been wary of it and not—” He broke off to curse under his breath. Then he turned back to Nick. “But she couldn’t handle it or believe it … It was a total disaster. Because of our father, she thought it was a mental defect—schizophrenia to be precise. That first Nick ended up medicated in an asylum with no one to protect him from our enemies. I’m still scarred by what was done to him. Worse, without us living at home, Mom never stopped working at her club and she was shot dead during a robbery.”
Nick wanted to vomit at the mere thought. “Are you serious?”
Ambrose nodded. “There’s nothing like watching multiple outcomes play out before your eyes and then live in your memory. I now understand why Savitar sits on his island, away from everything.”
Who? Nick had never heard of such a person. “Savitar?”
“A being you’ll meet one day. For now, it’s not important. Just remember, you can’t talk to your mother about any of this. She doesn’t want to know, and she’ll never accept the fact that she had the son of a demon.”
Who could blame her for that? He personally couldn’t think of any woman who would welcome that news. Hey, hon, guess what? Your son that you nurtured in your body for nine months and then sacrificed your life and dignity to raise is destined to end the world. Aren’t you proud?
Yeah, that just didn’t work.
All right then, he wouldn’t tell his mother about himself, his father or his Dark-Hunter boss Kyrian. Truthfully, he’d been tempted to let her know why Kyrian was different, why he worked so late at night and wasn’t around in the daytime. But every time he’d thought about it, his gut had kept him silent.
Score one for the gut. Too bad his brain wasn’t as smart.
For the very reason Ambrose had named, he’d been afraid of how she’d react. There were times when he felt like his mother was looking for a reason to have him committed or institutionalized. Like she feared him becoming his father so much that she was itching for some sign to confirm that he was every bit as violent and awful, and lock him up before it was too late and he hurt someone.
“What happened with the other attempts?”
“Next we were sucked into the Nether Realm at age seventeen where…” His voice broke off and he visibly cringed as if that memory was even worse than the one before. “Whatever you do, kid, stay away from Azmodea. Don’t believe any demon who tells you lies about how great it is. Because for you, it’s not, and I can’t stress the not part enough. Whatever you do, avoid creatures named Azura and Noir. Only slavery waits for you there. A slavery so brutal, you can’t even conceive of it. And it would give even Quentin Tarantino nightmares.”
That was an impressive thought and he took Ambrose’s warning to heart. “Never heard of that place, but will add it to my ‘under no circumstances’ list.” Like eating broccoli, doing laundry, or feeding Mark’s “dog” that was actually a thirteen foot gator with a nasty attitude and a taste for Cajun. “And the Nick after that?”
He let out a slow breath. “Suffice it to say, it didn’t go well either.”
“How so?”
Ambrose gave him an arch stare. “I’m you, Nick. Trust me when I say you don’t want to go there, and let’s leave it at that. There are some memories no one needs to have. And I’d give anything to purge it.”
“Yeah, but if you know me, then you know—”
“Nick!”
Gah, he hated that exasperated tone adults used.
Fine. Whatever. He wouldn’t press the issue. There were plenty more questions he had. And he dreaded the next one, but he had to know. “And with me?” I.e. how’s it going in comparison to the others?
Please don’t add me to the nightmare list. He wanted life to get better, not worse.
“It’s different this time, too. But in unique ways. Some things are the same and others…”
“Name some,” Nick prodded when he didn’t continue.
Ambrose paused in his pacing before Nick’s stoop. “You already know about the Dark-Hunters and Squires. I didn’t find out about them until I graduated high school. You met Simi at fourteen. In my original past, I met her just before I became a Dark-Hunter.”
Nick sucked his breath in at that unexpected bomb. “I become a Dark-Hunter like Kyrian?”
Ambrose nodded.
That wasn’t good. Thoughts whirled through his mind. Dark-Hunters were immortal warriors who protected mankind from the preternatural evil that preyed on them. While each DH came from a vastly different culture and time, the one thing that united them all was that something horrific had happened to them. Something so bad that they sold their souls to the goddess Artemis for an Act of Vengeance against the one who hurt them.
Nick wasn’t sure he wanted to know what would happen to him that was so awful that he’d do such a thing, especially if he couldn’t see it coming.