Infinity (chronicles of Nick, #1)

The first installment in the Chronicles of Nick series is set in modern-day New Orleans, where a hidden supernatural world exists alongside the human one. A brief prologue, narrated from an embittered future, introduces Nick Gautier as a man who blames his best friend Acheron Parthenopaeus for betraying him and turning him toward darkness. He frames the story as his life "and how things should have been" (3).

Fourteen-year-old Nick is a scholarship student at St. Richard's, a private high school. He lives in poverty with his mother, Cherise Gautier, an exotic dancer who dropped out of school as a teenager rather than give up her baby. At school, Nick endures constant mockery for his secondhand clothes and his mother's profession. When Stone Blakemoor, a bully whose father practically owns the school, makes vulgar comments about Cherise, Nick attacks him and is suspended. In the office, Nick meets Nekoda "Kody" Kennedy, a new student who defends him against Stone.

That evening, still angry and feeling the world already views him as a delinquent, Nick agrees to help neighborhood hustlers with what they describe as a simple job. It turns out to be an armed mugging of elderly tourists. Nick intervenes, knocking the gun away and shouting at the couple to run. His former friends beat him savagely, and one of them shoots him. A mysterious stranger and supernatural guardian named Kyrian Hunter, dressed in expensive black clothing, scatters the attackers and rushes Nick to the hospital.

Kyrian pays all medical bills and tells Cherise a partial truth: Nick was protecting the tourists when he was shot. To settle the debt, Kyrian offers Nick a part-time job. Cherise reluctantly agrees. While Nick recovers, Nekoda visits during her hospital volunteer shifts. A perspective shift reveals that Nekoda is secretly a warrior of the light, tasked by her mentor Sraosha with monitoring Nick. He is the latest Malachai, a member of a cursed bloodline destined to wield immense dark powers. Nick's near-involvement in the mugging has awakened forces that will seek to corrupt him. Nekoda vows that if she cannot turn Nick to the light, she will kill him.

After his release, Nick returns to school, where a classmate tries to eat another student in the cafeteria. School is canceled. Nick overhears older students discussing Dark-Hunters (immortal warriors), Were-Hunters (supernatural shapeshifters), and other terms they refuse to explain. He heads to the Triple B, a gun and computer store owned by Bubba Burdette, an MIT-educated zombie hunter. Nick's lab partner, Madaug St. James, arrives in a panic, insisting on speaking to Bubba. Shortly after, three zombified football players attack Nick at the store, and Bubba fights them off.

Nick begins working at Kyrian's shuttered, lightless mansion in the Garden District. Kyrian gives him a desk, computer, cell phone, and a generous salary. When two more zombified players break into the kitchen, Acheron, an 11,000-year-old immortal, arrives in a flash of light. His demon companion Simi, who normally appears as a tattoo on Acheron's arm, devours the intruders before Nick can see clearly. Acheron attempts to erase Nick's memory, but Nick is immune. He glimpses Acheron's true form: fangs, mottled blue skin, and horns. Shocked that Nick resists his powers and that Nick's future is invisible to him, Acheron realizes Nick is destined to alter his life in hidden ways. Acheron later reveals he is bound to the goddess Artemis and manages people on her behalf. The two form an unlikely bond.

That night, Madaug confesses at Bubba's store that he created a video game called Zombie Hunter. Designed to alter brain waves and make bullies passive, the game malfunctioned and turned its players into aggressive zombies. Copies have since spread, and Bubba organizes patrols to capture the converted students alive. His partner Mark joins the effort. While patrolling near the Lalaurie mansion, the most haunted house in New Orleans, Nick is lured into a courtyard by a ghostly child and attacked by mortents, demonic creatures. A raven lands on his injured shoulder, sending a surge of power through him that heals his arm and grants him sudden fighting abilities. He defeats the mortents.

A man named Ambrose then appears, resembling Nick's incarcerated father, Adarian Malachai. He claims to be Nick's uncle and gives him perspicacity, the ability to see through supernatural disguises. The perspective shifts to the raven, revealed to be Caleb Malphas, Nick's classmate and the school's star quarterback. Caleb is actually a daeva, a midlevel demon enslaved by Adarian and ordered to guard Nick. Adarian, who remains in prison by choice because the inmates' cruelty feeds his powers, commands Caleb to turn Nick evil but forbids any harm to Cherise.

Nick accidentally discovers that a cattle prod's high voltage cures zombified people by rebooting their brains. Events accelerate when Madaug's mother and 10-year-old brother Ian are kidnapped. Meanwhile, Ambrose communicates telepathically with Nick, revealing that he is actually a future version of Nick trying to alter his own past to prevent himself from becoming the fully evil Malachai. Ambrose gives Nick two weapons: a gold dagger called the seal of the Malachai, which can kill any being, and a leather-bound grimoire, a magical book that reveals incantations in response to blood and grows as Nick unlocks new powers.

Taabiki demons—supernatural fetchers sent to retrieve Nick for the mortents—slam into Bubba's SUV as the group drives to find Madaug, and Nick is captured. He wakes in a cell with Ian. The mortents address Nick as their lord and expect him to devour the boy as a sacrifice. Nick refuses. In a warehouse, the mortents force Nick to watch the Zombie Hunter game, whose subliminal programming fills him with rage. They hand him a sword and urge him to kill Stone, who cowers in a cage. Nick presses the blade to Stone's throat, savoring every insult he has endured.

He pulls back, realizing that killing Stone would make him no different from the bullies. His real enemies are the forces trying to corrupt him, and the respect he craves must come from himself and the people who truly love him. He recites an incantation from the grimoire, his arm heals, and he turns on the mortents, freeing the captives.

A reinforced truck crashes through the warehouse wall, carrying Bubba, Mark, Caleb, Nekoda, Simi, and Alex Peltier, a werebear classmate. Nick uses the cattle prod to cure Tabitha Devereaux, a vampire hunter, along with Madaug and his brother Eric, all of whom had been zombified. When zombies overwhelm Nekoda, she kisses Nick before being torn from his arms. The grimoire whispers a spell. Nick visualizes himself commanding the dead, recites the incantation, and the undead collapse. He banishes the mortent demons, and Madaug destroys the game.

In the aftermath, Nick learns that St. Richard's is a training ground for Squires, humans who serve Artemis and protect mankind. Many classmates are supernatural: Stone is a werewolf, the Peltiers are werebears, and Caleb is a demon. Nekoda agrees to go for beignets with Nick, though he has a brief, unsettling vision of her in ancient warrior armor driving a sword through his heart. At Kyrian's mansion, Cherise grounds Nick. As Kyrian yawns, Nick glimpses sharp fangs, realizing his employer is a Dark-Hunter. Ambrose watches from afar, noting that "we're making all new mistakes" (459) and fearing Nekoda, whose past and future remain invisible to him.