Illusion: Chronicles of Nick Read Online Free PDF Page B

attempting to make sense of it all. Closing his eyes, he tried one more time to tap any of the powers the Grim Reaper had taught him.
    Nada .
    Not even a burp or hiccup.
    He was as powerless as the day he’d been born.
    Irritated, Nick moved to the counter, where there was a small display of pendulums. They weren’t that different from the one he had that Grim had taught him to use. Without thinking, he reached for the one made of jet. It should protect him from whatever evil was messing with him.
    But the moment he touched it, it shattered into a million pieces. With a Cajun curse, he jumped back to see the blood on his index finger.
    Facing him, Selena gaped. “What are you?”
    Before he could answer, his chest began burning like someone had set his clothes on fire. Clutching his heart, Nick fell to his knees. Dog, it hurt. Bad.
    His breathing ragged, he tried to center himself. To bury the pain so that he could function. But just like earlier at school, he couldn’t. It felt like something was trying to suck him out of here.
    Or take him over.
    Worse, his hands turned translucent again.
    “Nick!”
    He heard Selena, yet he had no way of answering her. Words wouldn’t form, no matter what he tried. Someone laughed inside his head. Only it was more like a roar.
    With the speed of rapid-fire arrows, images flashed in his mind. He saw his own past and a past he didn’t know at all. Bubba was the same lunatic he knew and at the same time he was the man who was his father here. In another place and time, he was a scarred commando in the jungle, fighting zombies and other things Nick couldn’t identify. He saw his mother dying, over and over, in world after world.
    His own future self on a demonic rampage …
    Flames leapt around him as he flew through a destroyed New Orleans landscape that was littered with bodies and twisted remains of cars and military transports and weapons.
    Sicut erat in principio, et nunc, et semper, et in saecula saeculorum.… Kody’s voice filled his head. As it was in the beginning, it is now and will be to the ages of ages. Closing his eyes, he allowed her gentleness to give him something he could focus on.
    Pax tecum , little brother. Ash’s voice joined hers in his mind.
    And then a third soothing voice joined theirs. Speak your name, demonspawn, and I will give you what you want most. Peace will be yours. Forever.
    Nick scowled. Speak his name? That made no sense. Why was the voice in his head if it didn’t know him?
    I am crazy .
    “Nick!”
    Swallowing hard, he looked up into Selena’s panicked eyes and saw what was to come for him in his world. “You summoned Julian of Macedon for Grace on her birthday. She set him free. And Kyrian…” In six months from now, he’s supposed to meet Amanda . Nick could see it all so clearly.
    That was why Ambrose—Nick’s future self—had told him to stay clear of Amanda and Tabitha. Ambrose knew exactly what was to come for them, and by messing with the timeline, Nick could stop Kyrian from finding happiness and breaking free of his pact with Artemis.
    Nick could stop Kyrian’s destiny and thereby alter everything.
    One life touched thousands. For the first time, Nick truly saw the vastness of it all and fully understood.
    Every man is born as many and dies as one. With every choice made, a part of the future died and an opportunity was lost. You narrowed your options and steered yourself down the path of your life.
    A path that led Nick straight to a fate he didn’t want. He’d been born to end the world.…
    To destroy everything he loved and valued.
    Defy your destiny!
    “Nick!”
    Darkness surrounded him. It breathed into him and pressed against his chest until he feared he was dying. He couldn’t get it to turn him loose. It was here and all it wanted was his life. His powers.
    His immortal soul.
    Nick shook his head as he struggled for consciousness. But he was losing this battle.
    He was losing himself.
    Give. Me. Your.