Illusion: Chronicles of Nick Read Free Page A

Man, that was so wrong. That Jag was the same car Acheron had given him when he’d brought Nick’s license over to their condo.
    I want the life back where I get to drive that without Bubba flipping out on me.
    Then again …
    This was a normal life. Really normal, like other people’s lives. No one was trying to kill him, or eat him. He didn’t have a principal who thought he was the biggest loser on the planet. Half the football team wasn’t turning into zombies or werewolves. There was no psycho-demon coach threatening him if he didn’t help kill his fellow teammates. Bubba and Mark weren’t cattle-prod-wielding lunatics.
    You know, this has possibilities. It might not be bad to be normal for a while. Weird and poor hadn’t worked out that well for him. Rich and well dressed might be another story.
    Feeling better about it all, Nick decided he’d stop complaining about everything and just try this life on for a while. It might suit him.
    After climbing into his Jeep, he made his way to school, where no one stared at him as if he’d just run over their dog. In fact, it was disturbing how little attention he garnered. No one seemed to care at all that he was here.
    I could get used to this.
    “Hey, Nick.”
    It took him a second to realize it was Caleb … Fingerman, not Malphas, who was walking up to him in the hallway.
    “Hi, Caleb.”
    “Feeling any better?”
    He scowled at Caleb’s question. “Pardon?”
    “I called to check on you, but your dad said you didn’t feel well. That you went to bed as soon as you got home, without saying a word to anyone.”
    Yes, he had. After stumbling through the mansion and finding his room, he’d been hoping it was all a bad dream and that he’d wake up at home.
    Bust on that thought.
    “Yeah. I think it was just a bug.” Nick headed for his locker. As he tried to open it, the larger and snottier Madaug grabbed him and snatched him back.
    “What are you doing, buttmunch? You trying to put a love letter in my locker or something?”
    Nick shrugged his hold off. “I was going to my locker.”
    Madaug shoved him across the hall. “Yours is over there, doof. How many paint chips did you eat for breakfast?”
    Scowling, Nick met Caleb’s concerned gaze.
    “Are you sure you’re okay?”
    Nick returned his backpack to his shoulder. “Can you keep a secret?”
    “Always.”
    “I think I have amnesia.”
    Caleb’s eyes widened. “From what?”
    “Being slammed into lockers by dung-sniffing Neanderthals.” Nick passed an evil glare at Madaug as he walked past them. “I can’t seem to remember anything. Like, where’s my first class?”
    “Did you tell your parents?”
    Nick shook his head. “You know how my mom is. I don’t want to go to the Mayo Clinic for a hangnail. I feel fine. I just can’t remember anything.”
    “That’s not fine, Nick. That’s a big problem.”
    Yes, it was. But not for the reasons Caleb was thinking. “Please don’t tell anyone, Caleb.”
    “All right. I’ll help, but if it doesn’t get better, you really need to have it checked out.”
    “I will.”
    Caleb showed him to his locker and then opened it after Nick couldn’t. “The combo is your dad’s jersey number, your mom’s birth year, and the year your dad’s team won the Super Bowl.”
    He arched a brow at Caleb’s dissertation. “How do you know that?”
    Caleb shrugged. “We’ve been best friends since birth. There’s nothing about you I don’t know.”
    Yeah, right. He didn’t know that Nick didn’t belong here, and that in another life Caleb was a badass demigod demonspawn, and Nick was his half-breed demonkyn charge who was wanted by most anything not human-born.
    Don’t think about it.…
    Grabbing his chem book, Nick stood up, shut his locker, then clicked his heels together three times.
    Caleb gave him a strange look. “What are you doing?”
    Nick sighed heavily. “Seeing if what worked for Dorothy and witches worked for demonspawn,