I hate it when people tell how to do my job, especially my boss.
Nekoda’s guide, Sraosha is a mystery as to who he is and where he comes from. The one thing we do know is that he wants Nick dead…
From Infinity:
“Did he take it?”
Nekoda tensed as she felt the air around her stirring. The power was palatable and it was one she was intimately familiar with.
Sraosha. Her guide and mentor.
Nekoda locked the door of the storeroom to keep anyone else in the hospital from innocently coming in and seeing Sraosha’s form. Tall and graceful, he was so beautiful that it was hard to look straight at him. His powers were so great that they manifested as an ever moving aura that illuminated his skin with a bright yellow glow. His long blond hair flowed around his shoulders as he narrowed his gaze on her… a gaze that had no eyes. Only a smoky black cavity that was as frightening as it was peculiar.
“I left it for him,” she whispered. Nick had no idea that her Nintendo allowed her to keep an eye on him so long as he was around it.
Sraosha nodded. “What do you think of this one?”
He was younger than the other Malachais she’d fought. More innocent. Sweet even.
Don’t let him seduce you.
That was the last thing she could afford to have happen.
“He seems…” she had to choose her word carefully. “Different.”
“Do you think he’s the one?”
“I don’t know.” Since the dawn of time, they’d hunted for the right Malachai. The one who could turn against the dark forces that had sired it and fight with them against the Source so that she could free her brothers.
But to date, they had lost every Malachai they’d tried to save. The darkness within each one was more than they could resist. And who could blame them?
All of their bloodline was born to cause pain. Born to wield the darkest powers imaginable. Just as Nekoda had been born to the light.
Nick was still a kid who had no idea who and what he was. But she knew exactly the kind of violence he’d been bred for.
And he terrified her.
“Menyara swears we can save him.”
Sraosha scoffed. “She’s too close to this one. She’s blind to what he really is.”
Perhaps that was true, but Nekoda had no such attachment to him. “Have no fear. I’m not blind to him. His glamour doesn’t charm me.”
“Make sure you don’t fall victim to it. Remember, that’s only one of many powers he’ll possess. Powers that will work on all mortals and immortals alike. As you’ve seen, evil is already beginning to tempt him and that will only worsen as he matures.”
Nekoda swallowed as she saw in her mind the events that led up to his being shot. “He pulled back before hurting them.”
“This time. But that single act of drifting toward violence against another has unleashed his Cimmerian Magus. The dark powers are uniting now to train him. Can’t you feel it?”
Yes. It permeated everything here and it sent a feral chill down her spine. There were ten lessons that had to be taught to every Malachai. Every one of them would make him stronger.
More corrupt.
It would shape him into a tool of evil that would come for her and her people and wreak absolute misery on everyone who came into contact with him.
The first lesson was necromancy. But not just communication with the dead. Reanimation and control.
No matter how hard Nekoda tried, she couldn’t see Nick becoming like the others. Surely, he wouldn’t embrace such as cold power.
You made the mistake of that thought before.
She winced as she remembered his father and how wrong she’d been then. Had she struck when she’d been told to, she would have saved countless lives.
It’s the light inside of you that wants to believe in the goodness of other people. Even the Malachais. She’d shown the elder Malachai mercy and he’d spat in her face and embraced his own brand of evil.
No matter what, she wouldn’t be so stupid again.
“Have no fear, Sraosha. I’ve learned from my mistake. This time, I won’t fail. If we can’t turn him. I will kill him.”
“You better remember that. Because this one is even stronger than his father and now he’s being embraced and trained by the Dark-Hunters. If we don’t turn him, he will be the one who finally destroys us all.”
And she would be the one to blame for the death of humanity.
