Damian's Immortal (War of Gods 3) (12 page)

“
I’ll let you two fight
this out,” Jule said with a smile. “I’ve gotta get to the station.
Thank you both, and send my regards to D and Dusty.”

Jule closed his eyes, relishing in the
ability to Transport himself once more. No more walking across
Ireland for him! When he opened his eyes, he found a gruesome sight
awaiting him.

“
Been trying to call you,
Jule,” the blond Guardian said from his seat on the couch. He ran a
hand through his hair. “Sean’s dead. I found his body behind his
bar. I don’t know what did this to him, but it wasn’t a human or a
vamp. Whatever it was, it tore him in half.”

Jule’s gaze dropped to the blanket-covered
body laid carefully on the living room floor. His smile faded.

* * *

Damian tapped the knife against his boot,
deep in thought. The computer screen before him was blank, but he
didn’t notice.

“
You want me to kill
Jule,” he repeated at long last.

“
Yes,
ikir.
He refused to do as we said
and kill his target. He’s a threat to the survival of the
Guardians, if he chooses to protect her,” the Watcher
said.

“
Let’s pretend for a
moment that I actually believe anything you’re saying,” he said.
“There’s no benefit for anyone if Jule is killed. So what if he
failed at taking out a target?”

“
If he chooses to protect
this target from us-- ”

“
First,” Damian said,
standing, “Jule doesn’t take orders from you. Second, if he didn’t
execute his target, he has a damned good reason. I trust him over
you without question. What I really want to know is why Jule is of
any interest to you at all.”

The Watcher was silent.

“
If you can’t answer that,
then I’m not going to help you,” Damian said. “And the girl? She
looked far less harmless than the Other. Why aren’t you going after
the Other?”

“
We can’t track them in
the mortal realm,” the Watcher said. “If you let Jule live, you
must kill her. There is no other way to keep the Other from
destroying everything.”

As much as he hated these creatures, he had
to admit that they often led him in the right direction. Damian
would never kill his brother, Jule, but if the woman was dangerous
enough to warrant a Watcher’s attention, he couldn’t look the other
way.

She’d looked harmless to him, beautiful and
scared.

“
So I have to do my job
because you can’t do yours,” he summarized. “I’ll send
Dusty.”

“
Thank you,
ikir,
” the Watcher said.
“In time, I hope to provide more answers.”

Damian didn’t respond, silently cursing the
being. Satisfied it was getting what it wanted, the Watcher left
him alone. The more Damian dealt with them, the less he wanted to
deal with them again. The fact the mysterious creatures could find
him whenever they wanted made him cautious about outright opposing
them. Still, he wanted them out of his hair-- permanently.

Damian sought out Sofi, both for her calming
influence and any tidbits of what she might’ve Seen. She was in the
kitchen with Bianca and looked up with a smile when he entered.

“
How’re you feeling?” he
asked. He rested his hand on her expanding stomach and his chin on
her head.

“
Great.”

“
Bianca, my son will need
a playmate. You and Dusty better catch up,” Damian teased his
brother’s mate.

“
Dusty is just now on good
terms with my cat,” Biana replied. “I think a kid is a while down
the road!”

Damian looked down at Sofi and raised an
eyebrow. She winked. He hugged her, a darker thought crossing his
mind as he held her and their child close. If the Watchers could
find him, they could find her-- and their son. His desire to expel
the Watchers from the planet solidified. He could handle the Black
God, at least for the time being. Jenn would come back with enough
information on the Black God’s organization, that Damian could
counter the fledgling god for quite some time. The Watchers,
however, were a different story entirely. He had no recourse
against them yet.

“
You don’t need to worry
about us,” Sofi said quietly.

“
The world is going to
shit, and you’re telling me not to worry.”

“
Sometimes the answer is
right in front of you. You’re just too stubborn to see
it.”

He pushed her away from him, eyeing her. She
smiled faintly and lifted her chin towards the kitchen door. Damian
turned in time to see the vamp Charlie struggling to drag a skinned
deer carcass across the threshold. The vamp dropped it.

“
What the fuck are you
doing?” Damian demanded.

“
It’s okay, Damian,”
Bianca said quickly. “We have a system. He catches deer, drains
them of blood, skins them, and I cook ’em up for
dinner.”

“
That’s
where our venison is coming from?”

“
It’s better than letting
him kill the neighboring rancher’s cows or my rescue
animals.”

“
I fucking hate
housework,” the vamp said with a growl. “You make me do woman’s
work,
ikir.
”

Damian looked the vamp over. It had taken
Dusty two days to drill a routine and sense of discipline into the
vamp, which was one day too many to the schedule-addicted assassin.
Damian, however, was impressed he was able to do it at all. Vamps
weren’t known for their smarts.

“
So Charlie just roams
free in the house?” he asked.

“
Charles,” the vamp
corrected him.

“
He really doesn’t like
being called Charlie,” Sofi echoed. “He’s a person of sorts, too,
Damian.”

“
I’m keeping him safe from
the women,
ikir,
”
Pierre, Sofi’s bodyguard, added. The large, blond Guardian was
rarely more than five feet from his charge and sat in the
corner.

“
Am I the only sane one
here? Who domesticates a vamp?” Damian demanded.

Pierre was unfazed by his raised voice and
continued playing a game on his phone. The women paused in their
activities to look at him. Gauging by the huge basket of yarn at
her side, Sofi was crocheting an entire wardrobe for their unborn
son. Bianca was cooking something that made him wonder if the vamp
killed their lunch, too. The two women resumed their activities,
unaffected by his outburst.

“
Charles, this needs
chopped,” Bianca said cheerfully, holding out an onion.

The vamp moved forward with a frown and
hacked the onion apart with a vengeance that displayed his
distaste.

“
I can do other
things,
ikir
,”
the vamp said. “I can fight and hunt.”

“
Damian, why not give him
a shot at something?” Sofi asked. Her voice was quiet, and he
couldn’t help wondering if she’d Seen something important enough to
tolerate a vamp in her household.

“
He’s really good with
details,” Bianca volunteered. “Look.” She started to hand him what
looked like an intricate carving in the side of an orange. The vamp
snatched it and crushed it with his hand, glaring at
her.

She rolled her eyes at him and returned to
the cauldron of soup on the stove. The vamp stared at Damian.

“
Fine. I’ll assign him
something to do,” Damian said. “So you hunt and fight. Do you do
anything else?”

“
I’m an urban warfare
tactics trainer specializing in tracking. I can track any animal,
any kind of creature.”

“
Interesting,” Damian
said. “Can you track immortals?”

“
I can.” There was no
hesitation in the vamp’s response. Damian reconsidered the vamp
before looking at Sofi, who ignored him.

“
Can you track Watchers?”
he asked.

“
I’ve successfully tracked
Others and trained vamps with the tracking gift to do so as well,”
the vamp replied. “I’ve never tried Watchers.”

“
You can track Others,”
Damian repeated. “I can’t even track them.”

“
You know vamps have gifts
like Guardians,” Sofi said. “He’s a Hunter. If he hadn’t chosen to
become a vamp, he’d be a very useful Guardian.”

Another thought crossed Damian’s mind, one
that told him his little Oracle must’ve known who Jonny would’ve
chosen to send him in exchange for Jenn. A vamp who could track
Others was an invaluable treasure, especially if Charles could also
track the sneaky little Watchers.

“
You can train my
Guardians to hunt Others?” he asked. “And figure out if you can
hunt Watchers, too?”

“
Yes,
ikir.
I’d do anything to get out of
the fucking kitchen,” Charles replied. Bianca coughed to cover her
laugh, and Pierre seconded the vamp with a quiet
amen.

“
Well, then, let’s get
started,” Damian said and motioned for the vamp to follow as he
strode towards the house’s back door. “You’ll work with
Darian.”

“
The Grey God?” Charles
asked, trailing.

“
Yes, the Grey
God.”

“
I can track, but I won’t
fight an Other, if that madman chooses to fight one.”

“
Darian’s not crazy enough
to challenge an Other,” Damian said. Silently, he admitted Darian
wouldn’t back down if an Other crossed his path.

Darian was where he expected to find him: in
the gym. The Grey God rose from the weight bench as soon as he
spotted Damian.

“
Lookin’ good, brother,”
Damian said with a smile. He couldn’t get over seeing his brother
whenever he wanted, after so long without him. “This is Charlie …
Charles. He has a useful gift. Apparently, he can track Others, and
maybe even Watchers.”

“
Good. I have a couple
Others on my list of people to kill,” Darian said.

The vamp snorted. “I
warned you,
ikir.
”

“
I really am the only one
with sense around here. No, Darian,” Damian said, perplexed. He’d
gone away for a few months and returned to an entirely new world.
“You’re not going to fight any of them. Just learn to track them
while we have Charles here.”

Darian nodded and looked the vamp up and
down.

“
Play well together, or
it’s back to the kitchen with you, Charles,” Damian
warned.

The vamp growled low in his chest. Damian
left the unpredictable Grey God with the seasoned vamp. The plan
he’d begun to form was finally taking shape. If the Watchers and
Others couldn’t hide from him, he was one step closer to finding a
way to rid the planet of both. And Darian was the final key.

* * *

“
Let’s try this again,”
Yully’s father said. “You must focus on controlling your breathing
and keep your eye on the target.”

Yully drew a deep breath, like she did when
she was shooting clay pigeons. She focused on the target, a plate
above the hearth. She’d never suspected the depths of her father’s
strange power, and her first attempt to channel it was the reason
the house was now lit with candles. She’d shorted out the
electricity.

“
Breathe in, take what you
can, and hold it,” he instructed. “It’s the same thing you do to
change an object into another, only normal objects have far less
energy to control.”

She braced herself and pulled his power into
her, struggling to control it while panic rose. It wanted to roam
around her body instead of staying at her core, where she wanted
it.

“
Good,” her father said.
“Don’t fight it. It can’t hurt you. You’re like a vase and the
magic is the water.”

Yully forced herself to relax. Her grip on
his hand tightened, while she loosened her grip on the foreign
magic in her body.

“
It feels so weird,” she
said. “Hot and cold mixed together and almost like it’s raining
inside me. I can’t describe how strange this is,
Father.”

“
Does it obey
you?”

She concentrated hard, her eyes on the plate
across the parlor. Instead of answering, she raised her arm and
steadied her breath, as if she were holding a handgun. She willed
the magic to hit its target. Lightning streaked from her
fingertips, and she felt the magic sucked from her. It flew across
the parlor, and the plate exploded.

“
Very, very good,” he
said, an odd glow in his eyes as he gazed at the place where the
plate had been.

“
I understand what I’m
doing, but I don’t understand why.” She chose her words carefully.
“Of what use is this type of talent?”

“
There are many things I’m
forbidden from telling you.” Her father released her hand and gazed
at her for a long moment. “The world is becoming a more dangerous
place for you, and I’d hoped we could wait until the winter
solstice to perform the rite. However, the Guardians are growing
more aggressive, and they now know where you are. We have one
chance to save humanity.”

He was lying. She
felt
it. Yully cleared
her mind to keep him from seeing that thought and
nodded.

“
You are like an empty
vessel. You can be filled with water from any source. You can be
filled with water from multiple sources. The same skill you’ve
learned this morning, you can use against any Guardian or a whole
group of Guardians. Let’s try this,” he said. “Stand before
me.”