Damian's Immortal (War of Gods 3) (13 page)

Intrigued by his words, she obeyed and stood
before him.

“
Close your eyes. I want
you to sense my magic without touch.”

Yully’s eyes closed, and she focused hard on
feeling something other than Jule, whose presence still lingered in
her body. The harder she concentrated, the louder Jule’s heartbeat
grew, as if their bodies were pressed together again.

“
No, Father,” she said
with some frustration.

Her father touched her arm, and fire tore
through her. She gasped.

“
That should unlock the
rest of your gift,” he explained. “I’d hoped not to have to do
this, but I can’t wait for you to figure it out.”

Jule’s brand on her soul was even more
intense, enough so that she physically ached for him. Muddling
through the sensations, she sensed her father’s magic. It was like
standing in front of a bonfire.

“
I feel you,” she
breathed.

“
Good. Pull the magic into
you. This time, don’t blow up one of my antiques.”

There was no resistance this time as she
drew his magic into her, gathered it, and focused it. She sent a
chair sailing across the room.

“
I always knew you were
the one,” her father said, showing excitement for the first time
since she could remember. “Come with me. One more thing, and I’ll
let you rest. We only have a couple of days until the autumn
equinox.”

His power moved through her like a wind in a
forest. Everything in the room radiated some sort of subtle energy,
and she waded through the energies, marveling and confused by them.
Yully followed him out into the cold, rainy afternoon. He didn’t
pause for their coats, so she bypassed the cloak room and crossed
her arms as she exited the warm house.

The energies of the things in the house were
replaced by new energies coming from the ground. They were faded
and distant, and she looked down as she followed her father. He
paused in the middle of the lawn that stretched between the house
and the massive garage.

“
Can you feel them?” he
asked, facing her.

Shivering, she nodded, puzzled. It was as if
small objects had been buried in the ground, and their weak magic
was muffled.

“
Is this a test, Father?”
she asked, anxious to get out of the cold rain. “Did you bury
things out here to see if I could feel them?”

“
Yes,” he replied. “And
you do. Can you draw the energy into you?”

She walked in a circle until she found the
strongest of the energy patterns in the vicinity and paused above
it. The magic crept up through her shoes and into her legs, warming
her body as it went.

“
I can, Papa,” she
said.

“
Try more than one.
They’re scattered all across our lawns.”

She closed her eyes and concentrated again.
She sensed Jule, her father, and hundreds-- no, thousands!-- of
tiny signatures surrounding them. The energy came when she opened
herself. Yully struggled to control the energies into her body,
still leery of the invaders.

“
You’re glowing,” her
father said in a hushed tone. “I’ve been waiting for you for so
long, Yully.”

She opened her eyes and looked down. She
didn’t seem to glow to her own eyes, though she suddenly realized
the rain no longer fell on her. Holding out her arm, she was
fascinated to see the rain arc to avoid it.

“
This was all I needed to
know,” her father said. “Now, into the house, before you fall
ill.”

He strode to the house, and she trailed,
fascinated by the sensation of stepping over the energy sources.
She released the energies, and they returned to their sources.

“
How long did it take you
to bury all these things?” she asked.

“
Ten years or so,” he
replied.

“
So you just randomly took
things from the house and buried them?” She couldn’t help her
smile. “I can’t see you in the rain digging a hole for a
toaster.”

“
My dear, these aren’t
toasters,” he said and echoed her chuckle. “They’re Guardians and
guardsmen who would’ve seen you dead. I didn’t send their souls to
the immortal realm, because I’d hoped you’d be standing here one
day, able to drain the magic from them.”

She froze, the warmth of the magic leaving
her as fear replaced it.

“
Father, there are
thousands,” she said, looking around her. She tried to assess how
many there might be. “Tens of thousands.”

“
I guess I’d forgotten how
many there were. The more the better. We’ll need all their magics
on the autumn equinox.” He disappeared into the house, and she
stayed where she was, horrified.

Guardians.
He’d killed and buried Jule’s kind. Jule, whose
soul had somehow lingered in her body when she’d touched him, and
who had become the only man she’d ever felt safe around. Even her
father’s magic was gone when she expelled it.

…
you seem to think a
Guardian of humanity is your enemy
, Darian
had said.

Her replacement cell phone rang, jarring
her. She answered it with numb fingers.

“
Hey,” Jule
said.

“
Hey,” she
answered.

“
I hear it in your voice.
What’s wrong?”

“
I can’t talk about it,”
she replied in a tight voice. “What do you want?”

“
We’re having a wake for
Sean tomorrow. I thought you’d like to say goodbye.”

Yully squeezed her eyes closed, relieved the
bartender wasn’t buried in her backyard with the others.

“
I don’t think my father
would approve of me seeing you,” she managed. “I mean, of me
going.”

“
Sean would probably
appreciate it if you came. His death wasn’t a pleasant
one.”

She didn’t want to imagine what her father
was capable of. Her gaze went to the lawn around her. She owed it
to the dead to attend one Guardian’s wake.

“
I’ll do my best,” she
said at last.

“
Noon tomorrow, on the
cliff opposite the cottage.”

Yully hung up. She wanted to scream, cry, or
flee. The same part of her that recoiled at draining dead men’s
magic also understood one truth: she was no match for her father,
if he decided to bury her with them.

With a deep breath, Yully left the graveyard
and returned to the manor, determined to find a way to leave for
Sean’s wake.

Chapter Six

Jenn snapped awake and sat, reaching for the
gun under her pillow. The walls of the underground facility were
trembling from a shockwave of power that made her Guardian senses
hum with danger. She changed quickly out of her sleepwear and
loaded her body down with weapons then drew a knife and her
gun.

She left the room assigned her by Jonny, two
doors down from his in his private wing. His guards lay dead in the
hallway before his door, and she leapt over their bodies, shoving
the door to his apartments open.

“
Jonny?” she called. “Are
you here?” A quick exploration of his apartments showed two more
dead vamps but no Black God.

Jenn trotted through the halls, hopping over
dead vamps as she went. No other sounds stirred but that of her
boots over concrete. None of the vamps she’d seen yet were alive.
The shockwaves faded, and she stood in the middle of an
intersection, stretching out with her Guardian senses to find some
kind of life.

“
C’mon, Jonny, be alive,”
she whispered.

A faint pulse of life came from the
direction of the gym. Jenn ran through the halls, certain no vamp
was about to get in her way when all of them so far were dead. She
pushed open the door to the gym. Emergency lighting glowed along
the walls, and the strange silhouettes of workout machines made her
pause and wait for her night vision to filter out machine from
potential attacker.

Nothing was alive in here, either. Alarmed,
she picked her way through the rows of machines towards the door
leading to the sparring mats. The lights were on in here, and
Jonny’s form lay in the center of about a hundred dead vamps.

“
Jonny!” she exclaimed,
rushing forward. She dropped to her knees beside him and pushed him
onto his back. “Jonny!”

The only thing she could’ve imagined
happening was an ambush. Jonny’s body was bloodied and beaten,
though his pulse was strong. Jenn checked his eyes and lowered her
ear to his mouth to make sure he was breathing.

“
Fancy seeing you
alive.”

She whipped around, weapon pointed at Xander
as he appeared through the doorway. His gaze took in the dead
vamps. Jenn had wanted to shoot him since meeting him, and she
opened fire. Xander held up a hand, catching the bullets and then
tossing them.

Her arm dropped.

“
You’ll have to use your
bare hands,” he said, looking her over. “No human weapon can hurt
me.”

“
Why did you do this?” she
demanded. She holstered the gun and drew a knife. “You can’t kill
him.”

“
I can’t claim this
massacre. But I can claim credit for saving you from ending up like
the rest of them.”

“
Jenn …” Jonny’s voice was
weak. She stepped back over his body, unwilling to lower her guard
against the large vamp whose gaze was on her.

“
Jonny, hon, what
happened?” she asked.

“
Help me up.” He held out
his hand. She pulled him to his feet.

“
Stay behind me, Jonny,”
she directed him. “I’ll take care of this.”

“
No, no, Jenn. I did
this,” Jonny said. He wobbled on his feet and shook his head. “They
ambushed me. I was trying to … I don’t know what
happened.”

“
You killed every vamp in
the facility,” she told him.

“
Really?”

“
Except for Xander here,
who seems immune to just about everything.”

“
I’m just that tough,”
Xander said. Jonny looked at the massive vamp, who made no move to
close the distance between them.

“
He’s just really tough,”
Jonny said. “You survived, too, Jenn.”

“
The Black God saved those
who were loyal to him,” Xander supplied.

“
That makes sense,” Jonny
said.

“
No, it doesn’t,” Jenn
countered, watching Xander manipulate the boy-god without knowing
how he did it.

“
Know your place,
Guardian,” Xander warned in a lower voice.

“
I’m ready when you are,
vamp.”

“
Enough,” Jonny snapped,
dabbing at the blood on his face. “All I know is that I wanted them
to stop beating me. Xander’s right, Jenn. You two are the only
people I trust. I’m sick of living underground anyway.”

“
Safer underground,” Jenn
and Xander said simultaneously.

“
I don’t care. Xander,
find me somewhere safe above ground. Jenn, help me to my room. I
need to rest.”

“
I know somewhere safe,”
Xander said. “We can go now. This place is compromised. Everyone
within a hundred miles felt what you did.”

“
Somewhere safe above
ground, with vamps who are loyal?” Jonny asked.

“
As you command.” Xander
held out his hand.

“
Jonny-- ” Jenn
objected.

“
Take us there,” Jonny cut
her off. He limped to Xander.

“
Your Guardian must come,”
Xander said.

“
Jenn, you must come with
me,” Jonny echoed.

Her instincts on high alarm, she met
Xander’s gaze. The vamp smiled slowly. She replaced her weapon and
crossed to him, unwilling to show fear. No matter what, she had to
stay with Jonny. She accepted Jonny’s hand rather than Xander’s and
closed her eyes to the cold sensations of Transporting. When she
opened them, they stood outside a stone façade of a compound built
into the side of a mountain and surrounded by evergreen trees whose
branches were heavy with snow.

“
Where are we?” Jonny
asked.

“
Pacific northwest,”
Xander answered. “At one of your compounds.”

“
I was thinking Miami,”
the Black God admitted. “I’m not used to cold weather.”

“
This is the safest place
you could be, but whatever you desire, I will obey.”

“
No, no, this is fine. It
looks safe. I just need to rest.”

Xander stepped aside and Jonny walked
through the front door. Jenn started forward, not surprised when
the vamp blocked her path.

“
You got a problem with
me?” she demanded.

“
A huge one.”

“
I’ll be gone in three and
a half weeks. Deal with it.” She brushed by him.

“
Do you spar, Guardian?”
he called after her.

“
Not with
vamps.”

“
Shame.”

She faced him. “Why is that?”

“
You make a good
adversary.”

“
Of all the Guardians out
there, how did I end up your personal adversary?”

“
You’re the first Guardian
I’ve ever met without killing. I’m curious.”

“
Likewise, but I intend to
kill you before this is over,” she told him. “Although, not before
I find out what you are.”