Unable to stand it, he forced himself to walk to the keypad on the gate and press the code. He half-expected it not to work, but it did.

Nick paused by the petunias his mother kept in a large vase next to the back door and moved it over so that he could get the spare key.

Everything was just as it’d been when he’d been human… Only now everything was different.

Most of all, he was different.

His stomach churning, he opened the door and stepped into his house.

His friend, Kyl Poitiers, had told him that there had been some damage to the place during Katrina, but that the house had been restored. Nick had to give them credit – it was pristine. Nothing, other than his mother’s spirited presence, was out of place.

“Oh, Nicky, look! It has one of them garbage disposals! I never thought I’d own something so fancy and look at them tiles on the wall. Is that Italian marble?”

Dropping his duffle on the kitchen floor, he glanced to the right, where the Travertine bake center was. “Only the best for you, Mom.”

He could still see her smiling as she rushed around the room for the first time. “Oh, you spoil me, baby. You’re the only thing right I’ve ever done in my life. I don’t know why God was so good to me that He sent you down from heaven, but I’m glad He did.”

Nick let out a bitter laugh. He wasn’t heaven-sent. Like the worthless bastard who’d fathered him, he was hell-born.

Literally.

He laid the key on the countertop. The last time he’d been here, he’d been calling out for his mother. Screaming her name as he ran through the house, trying to locate her.

He’d found her upstairs.

Against his will, his feet took him right to the spot where he’d last seen her. He stood in the doorway, looking at his mother’s favorite chair. In his mind, he could see her lifeless body there. But in reality, there was no trace of her death…

Or his own.

He cringed at the memory. Just before where he now stood, he’d called out to the Greek goddess Artemis to make him a Dark-Hunter. When she’d refused and told him he’d have to be dead first, he’d blown his brains out right in front of her.

Afraid of how Acheron would react to his death, Artemis had made him immortal and marked him with the Dark-Hunter bow-and-arrow brand on his face, but he wasn’t really one of her army who protected mankind. He had powers greater than the others.

For one, he could walk in daylight while no other Dark-Hunter could.

And now he shared powers with Stryker…

Nick frowned as he saw a half-empty Coke bottle on the side table. His mother had never touched regular Coke, only diet, and he would never have dared left a drink in her secret sanctum.

Someone else had been in the house, and since there was an opened paper from today, he would say that someone had moved in and made themselves at home.

In his house.

Anger tore through him. Who would dare?

Wanting blood, he stormed through the rooms, but found each one empty, with no sign of who had dared trespass here.

“Fine,” he snarled. “I’ll deal with you later.”

First he wanted to visit his mom. He flinched at the thought. He hadn’t been to the cemetery since his worthless father had died. Even though he’d passed by the St. Louis Cemetery almost every day, it just hadn’t been a place where he’d ever spent much time. It reminded him of his father and of the gang Nick once ran with. A gang that used to rob tourists who dared to enter the cemetery alone.

A gang that had almost killed him when he’d been a boy.

Yet he would go today to visit his mother. He hadn’t been here for the funeral. The least he could do now was let her know he still missed her.

His heart heavy, he walked the few blocks that separated his house from Basin Street and walked through the stone entrance of the cemetery. The rains had already moved on, as they often did in New Orleans. But they had left everything sticky and hot.

Since it was morning, the wrought-iron gates were open and chained back. As a Daimon and a Dark-Hunter, Nick shouldn’t be allowed to walk in daylight or go anywhere near a cemetery, yet a higher power had spared him that curse. Like Ash, he could walk in daylight, and unlike other Dark-Hunters, he could walk in a cemetery and not be possessed by the wandering souls that were trapped here.

Without pausing, he walked toward the Gautier family mausoleum. As he passed the raised tombs that had caused New Orleans cemeteries to be called the cities of the dead, he noted how many of them still bore traces of hurricane damage. Even Marie Laveau’s tomb wasn’t as colorful as it’d been. Many of the tombs were missing names and stones.

Fear crept into him at what he’d find waiting for him at his mother’s resting place. But as he turned the corner toward her grave, he froze.

Menyara Chartier, a tiny, frail African-American woman, was sitting in front of the grave, talking in a whisper to his mother while she arranged bouquets of white lilies. The Voodoo high priestess paused mid-sentence and turned her head as if she knew who would be there.

“Ni – ” She frowned, catching herself from saying the rest of his name.

“Aunt Mennie,” he said, his voice breaking as he closed the distance between them. She’d been the woman who had delivered him, since his mother hadn’t been able to afford a hospital stay. Over the early years of his life, Menyara had been the only family he and Cherise had known. For that matter, his mother had rented a room in Mennie’s home until the duplex beside it had been cleared for habitation. “You’re still here.”

She rose slowly to her feet. Even tinier than his petite mom, she shouldn’t have been intimidating to anyone over the age of five and yet there was something so powerful about her that it had never failed to quell him. Without thinking he swept her up into his arms and held her close.

“I knew you would return,” she breathed before she kissed him on his branded cheek. “Your mother, she told me to watch for you.”

To anyone else, that comment might have seemed odd. But Menyara was a gifted clairvoyant. She knew things no one else did.

Not even Acheron.

“I didn’t kill my mother,” he said as he set her down again. That was the vicious rumor that had been going around.

She patted his arm. “I know, Ambrosius. I know.” She turned and indicated the tomb she’d been tending. “Every day I have come for you, to let Cherise know she’s not alone.”

He looked down at the stacks of flowers and rosaries that were arranged around the tomb and saw where a small group of black roses were blooming in a tiny patch of earth. “You bring her flowers?”

“No. I only arrange those the dark-haired man sends.”

Nick frowned. “Dark-haired man?”

“Your friend. Acheron. Whenever he’s in town, he comes and he visits, too. And every day without fail, he sends over flowers for your mother to see.”

His blood ran cold. “He’s not my friend, Menyara.”

“You may not be his friend, Ambrosius, but he is yours.”

Yeah, right. Friends didn’t screw each other over the way Nick had been screwed by Ash. “You don’t know him. What he’s capable of.”

She shook her head at him. “Ah, but I do. Even better than you. I know exactly who and what he is. I know exactly what he can do. And more to the point, I know what he cannot do. Or what he dare not do.” Her features softened as she touched his brand, but said nothing about its presence. “All your life, I have watched you. Your mama always say that you react without thought. You feel too deep. Mourn too great. But one day, Ambrosius, you will see that you and your friend are not so different. That there is much of you in him.”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about. I don’t walk out on my friends and I damn sure don’t hurt them.”

She indicated the flowers with a wave of her hand. “He didn’t walk out, cher. He was here when the devil unleashed his wrath on us. Acheron saved my life and those of many others. He brought food to us when we had nothing to eat and kept your home from being burned. Don’t judge him by one bad act when he has done so many good ones.”

Nick didn’t want to forgive Ash. Not after all that had happened. But in spite of his anger, he felt his heart softening at the knowledge that Ash had been here – that he hadn’t abandoned the city as Nick had thought. “Why are you calling me Ambrosius?”

“Because that is what you are now. Immortal.” She touched the bite mark on his neck. “My little Nicky is gone. Buried by emotions so great they mock the depth of the ocean. Can you tell me if my baby boy will ever come home again?”

Nick wanted to curse at her. He wanted to shout, but in the end he felt like a lost child who only craved his mother’s touch. A deep-seated sob escaped and before he could stop it, he did what he hadn’t done since the night he’d found his mother dead.

He cried. All he wanted was for the unrelenting pain inside him to cease. Just for one heartbeat. He wanted time to go back to the way it’d been before – when his mother had been alive and Ash had been his best friend.

But how could it?

Everything was destroyed and every day he hated more. Not just Acheron, but everything and everyone. There was no peace for him anymore. It was as if a part of him had died with his mother.

A part of himself he feared he’d never have again.

His heart.

Menyara pulled him into her arms and held him close. She didn’t speak. Still, her touch soothed him even more than words could.

She pressed her lips to the top of his head and gave a light kiss. “You were a good boy, Ambrosius. Cherise still believes in you and so do I. She wants you to let go of your anger. Be happy again.”

He pulled back with a curse at her words that reminded him of something his mother would say. “How can I let everything go while my mother is dead?”

“How can you not?” she insisted. “It was your mother’s time to leave this world. She is happier now that she can watch over you and – ”