Demon and the Fox - 20. One Step Closer

A cold breeze seemed to have seeped into the tower’s spiral staircase somehow, despite the lack of windows. Or maybe it was just Nick’s fever making him sensitive to the cold. He ignored the fever and pain, instead focusing on Koda.

Nick was looking into those round brown eyes, trying to visualize them morphing into human shaped eyes. He pictured the black bristles shedding from Koda’s body, revealing human skin underneath.

And Koda was waiting patiently, but Nick was getting frustrated.

“This isn’t working.” Nick fell back against the black marble steps.

Koda made a little sound, like a whimper, and pushed his muzzle against Nick’s arm—his good arm, not the poisoned, numb one. Nick shivered but he sat back up.

“I’m sorry. Of course I’ll try again.”

How many times had Koda been there for him? Saved him? If Nick couldn’t do this for Koda, then maybe he deserved to die here. Again.

He gripped Koda’s neck with his left hand, and looked into his eyes again. Bending reality came naturally for Nick. He just made whatever he wanted to happen, happen. But usually he would bend reality for himself, not for someone else. So what he did this time, he pictured himself as Koda. They became one. The barriers of their physical bodies didn’t matter anymore. Their minds were working together.

In his mind’s eye Nick visualized himself as a big black dog—just like Koda.

“We’ll do it together,” he said.

Nick, still holding onto Koda’s neck, closed his eyes and visualized himself changing back to human. Everything else stopped existing. The harshness of the steps on which he sat, the darkness, the sound of their breathing, the wind wailing outside; all of that was gone. His mind was solely focused on the change from canine to human form. Nick had never actually witnessed such a transformation, even though he dated a werefox. But Sasha had never showed him. And Nick had seen Hazel and Jackson Snow as big silver wolves during the battle, but he had died before he could see them change back. Still, he could imagine how the bone structure would change, how their shape and alignment would snap back into place to give the body a human form. The muscles had to change too: much slighter neck and chest muscles, leaner and longer legs, and the tail would just retract back. The visualization was so vivid that Nick was sweating and trembling.

He didn’t know how long they stayed like this. But at some point Nick realized he wasn’t holding a handful of fur anymore. Instead his left hand was touching soft skin.

His eyes opened.

“Holy shit,” Nick said, “it worked.”

If Nick had to guess, he would say that Koda’s ethnicity was Native American; golden brown skin, slanted dark brown eyes, a small nose and a flash of thick, ashy black hair. He was very clumsy in his movements as he pulled away from Nick and attempted to cover up his nakedness by folding his long limbs. Also, it looked like he was shivering.

“Ha! Now I’m not the only one who’s cold,” Nick said. “Welcome to my world. Being a human is hard.”

Koda didn’t say anything. It looked like he wasn’t going to be much more talkative now than before. Not yet, anyway.

“Raven might have some clothes he can lend you.”

Nick got up, securing his sword’s strap around his left shoulder. His right one throbbed and the pain was so sudden and intense that it nearly sent him sprawling, but he held his ground, cradling his arm to his chest. After grabbing Riley’s journal, Koda clambered up the stairs next to Nick, keeping his head bent low, as though he didn’t like standing so tall. They padded along the corridor and reached the door with the two torches. Nick frowned and stopped as he’d been about to knock. He heard voices behind the door.

Raven’s meeting hadn’t been some made-up excuse to get rid of Nick. There really were several people in Raven’s office now. Nick thought he heard at least four different voices. They sounded like they were arguing.

How come there were people in here, though? With Koda they hadn’t seen anyone climbing up the stairs. Right. They must have teleported, Nick thought. He was the only idiot who had travelled the long way up.

Nick glanced to the side. It was still weird to have a boy his height standing next to him, instead of a dog. It would take some getting used to.

“Should I knock?”

Koda lifted a hand, and Nick thought he was going to knock himself. But instead Koda scratched the door with his nails. The resulting sound wasn’t too pleasant.

“Don’t do that!” Nick yanked Koda’s hand away.

The voices quieted down behind the door. They heard heavy steps coming their way. The knob turned, and Raven half-opened the door and glimpsed out. His irritated expression turned to one of shock in a split second as his blue eyes widened; it was almost funny. He looked over his shoulder.

“I’ll be back in a minute, gentlemen. I apologize. This is an emergency.”

There were grunts of protest as Raven slipped out the room. He didn’t have his wings out anymore. Instead Raven wore a black blazer. Just before he shut the door, Nick glimpsed four men in business suits sitting at the glass table, looking at the maps of the world.

Men in positions of power arguing over territory: the afterlife wasn’t so different from life itself, then. The thought depressed Nick to his core.

Without a word, Raven grabbed both Nick and Koda and led them up the corridor to another door. Raven shouldered it open and threw both boys inside. This one was a bedroom. The walls were the same shimmering silver as Raven’s office. A massive four-poster bed was set on one side. The bed covers were black, but lined with intricate silver and blue patterns. Here, too, was a tinted window. On either side were shelves with old volumes stacked in neat rows. Outside, it looked like the snow had stopped. Even as he was in pain, Nick was tempted to approach the window. The view was breathtaking; snowy forests stretching out forever and mountaintops with impossible heights, like something out of a fairy tale. The winter forests really were prettiest with frost adorning them.

Opposing the bed was a huge dresser with at least twenty drawers. Raven put one knee down and opened the drawer at the very bottom. Nick looked down and saw an array of small glass bottles full of liquids of all colors, labeled with words he couldn’t understand.

Raven glanced up and their eyes met. “Show me your arm.”

Nick hesitated. His shoulder hurt so much that he was afraid to even try moving it. He wasn’t too sure what to do about the long sleeve. Koda was stepping away, giving them space. He stalked over to the rows of books and set Riley’s journal there.

Suddenly, Raven leaped up and opened a different drawer. He drew out slim black pants and a soft-looking blue shirt and tossed them at Koda.

Raven glanced back at Nick, tucking his hair behind his ears. He looked very nervous.

“I underestimated you, Nicholas. I was starting to lose hope for Koda. I had no idea you could do this for him.” He spoke very quickly. He was almost shaky.

Nick had never seen him like this before.

“Yeah, me neither,” Nick said.

“Show me your arm,” Raven insisted.

Behind him, Koda seemed to be analyzing the clothes, but he wasn’t progressing much with actually putting them on.

Nick looked down at his right arm. “I—”

Every gesture betraying impatience, Raven reached up and grabbed Nick’s collar. He yanked and tore at the sleeve’s fabric, ripping it from Nick’s shoulder to his elbow. Nick couldn’t hold back a yell of pain as Raven grabbed his arm in his hands. The skin was a dull, grayish color. Nick didn’t even want to look.

But Raven just nodded. “This has been used on me before. I know what to do.”

He bent over his bottom drawer again, and selected two small glass bottles. One contained a clear liquid, and the other was filled with a substance as thick and red as blood. Nick watched as Raven mixed the two in an empty jar and then drew out a syringe. With quick, expert fingers, Raven drained his mixture into the syringe. Then he leaned close to Nick again.

Raven inserted the needle in the crook of Nick’s elbow—that part of his arm was numb, so it didn’t hurt. Still, Nick was breathing heavily. The fever was making him dizzy, and his legs were weak. He shuddered as he felt Raven’s cold mixture being forced into his veins.

Nick looked up into dark blue eyes. “Thank you.”

But Raven shook his head. “This is not selfless.”

He tossed the syringe on a little desk next to the dresser.

“What do you mean?” asked Nick. He could already feel a tingling sensation in his right arm. It was making the pain go away, and Nick could breathe.

Raven dragged a small piece of paper from his blazer’s pocket and showed it to Nick. It was parchment paper, with the contours blackened like they’d been burned. And the note was written in red—like blood. Koda had finished getting dressed—albeit with his shirt on the wrong side—and he came to read it with Nick.

‘I have Cyan. If you don’t withdraw and surrender Hell’s leadership to me immediately, I will kill him. It just so happens that my friend Olivia has an empty cell waiting for him in Purgatory. I’ve heard she has the reputation for sending her prisoners to the Fires in record times—Cordially, Louis.’

“Louis,” Raven said, “just sent this to me.” He crumpled the note and threw it on top of the dresser next to the syringe. “He knows I’m in a meeting with Higher Demons. He made this note appear before me in a cloud of smoke to embarrass me in front of the others. I didn’t know what to do. I can’t make the HDs wait too long. Jun is busy. But you,” he looked at Nick, then at Koda, “you just did this amazing thing. And now I’m thinking of asking something else of you.”

“You don’t even have to ask,” Nick said at once. “It’s Cyan.”

“He’ll be somewhere in Louis’s mansion,” Raven said in a strained voice. “Please teleport. Don’t walk there. Stop walking places. No one does that.”

Nick stared. “I’d love to, and I’m sorry if Louis never invited me over for tea, but I don’t know what his mansion looks like.”

“Koda knows.” Raven held Koda’s shoulder. “You’ll go together. Koda, you think of Louis’s mansion while Nick takes care of the teleporting. Can you do that for me?” Koda gave a firm nod, and Raven pulled back. “Don’t screw this up,” he added.

He made to leave the room.

“H—Hey, wait!” Nick turned around and Raven stopped. But Nick wasn’t too sure what he wanted to ask. How would he do this? How could he fight Louis, and possibly Lucas? How could he protect both Koda and Cyan from them, if it came to it? The words got stuck in his throat.

Raven looked so shaken right now, as he raked a pale hand through his long black hair. But his gaze was unwavering as he stared Nick down.

“If you do this for me, if you bring him back unharmed,” Raven said, “I’ll make you a Dark Angel. You have my word.”

And Raven left the room, slamming the door shut behind him. Well, he sure knew how to make an exit. Something fluttered inside Nick’s chest. He didn’t need a reason to help Cyan; he just wanted to help Cyan. But… Dark Angel. That would bring him one step closer to getting his life back. To kicking Malachy out and start repairing the damages that demon had done.

Nick looked down reflexively, then remembered Koda’s eyes were now at the same level as his. And very human. Still not used to it. Nick shook it off and grabbed Koda’s arms, his fingers sinking into the blue sleeves. With a quiet gasp, he realized he was using his right hand right now. Raven’s antidote was powerful stuff. Nick smiled.

“Okay, I need you to think about Louis’s mansion. Really hard. Don’t think about anything else.”

Koda nodded. He held Nick’s arms and closed his eyes. Nick willed the air around them to turn to black, like a veil. Raven’s metallic bedroom walls blurred. A wind rose and whirled around them, stirring their hair. The floor was tilting under their feet. Nick inched closer to Koda, praying to whatever God was out there that his friend was thinking about the proper location right now. Nick squeezed his eyes shut, and they shifted.