Damian's Immortal (War of Gods 3) (18 page)

“
Change into something
warm, my dear. We’re going to the site tonight.”

“
Father, I’m
tired.”

“
Do as you’re told.” The
edge in his voice made her hasten her step, and she followed the
chauffeur carrying her trunk into a small room.

She took a moment to adapt to the new
glimmers of energy in the room before changing into warmer clothes
and her heavy coat. She armed herself, not willing to be caught off
guard, then joined her father in the tiny foyer. He led her into
the cold night and back to the car.

They didn’t drive long, and the car pulled
off to the side of the road. Yully looked around curiously, not
recognizing the sloping hill before them. The scent of the ocean
was on the air, and the area in front of them was guarded by
tourist police while tourists camped out in small tents up and down
the road.

“
Take my hand,” her father
instructed. “We’ll become invisible to them.” At his words, a rush
of cold magic filled her.

Doubtful, she winced as they approached
tourists and police alike, waiting for someone to stop them, and
fearful of what her father would do if someone did. They moved
through the people with ease and walked up the low hill. When she
reached the crest, she recognized the sight before her.

Ballynoe. The ancient megalith pulsed with
power older than that of her father’s. Mesmerized, she missed her
step, and her father continued without her to the center of the
landmark. It was like watching a spark grow into a flame. He glowed
white-purple, and the hill beneath her trembled.

The power beckoned to her, and she obeyed.
Her first step into the structure filled her with its power. Yully
struggled to control it and then surrendered. She closed her eyes
to the gentle flow and strange sensations: Jule’s warmth, her
father’s hot-cold rain, the ancient power of the ruins.

“
It’s welcoming you.” Her
father’s voice warbled as if through water. “Tomorrow, on the
equinox, it’ll be so powerful, it will sing to you.”

“
It’s singing now,
Father,” she replied. The sensations were similar to her bond with
Jule: sweet and warm. She ached for him, and the magic thrummed
around her, echoing her loneliness. Laughter rose within her, and
the magic laughed with her. It flipped her hair and swirled around
her. For the first time in her life, she felt her magic was a gift
and not a curse.

“
Tomorrow, we’ll come here
just before sunset. The magic is at its strongest between dusk and
midnight. Come, daughter.”

Yully opened her eyes, suddenly aware she
was floating two feet of the ground. She panicked, and the magic
released her.

“
I’ve been waiting for
generations for you,” her father said, his eyes glowing. “I groomed
hundreds of others like you, and only you can do this.”

Yully didn’t ask about her predecessors. She
suspected they were buried with the Guardians. As she stepped away
from the magic of the Henge, sorrow for those women who came before
her pulled her from the powerful high. Her eyes went from the
ancient site glowing in the moonlight to her father’s form as he
walked up the hill.

A new emotion was forming in her breast:
hatred. She hadn’t expected it to form so fast or so strong. She
stepped away from the monument amplifying her magic and followed
her father. The intensity of her emotion faded as she crested the
hill, but it didn’t completely disappear.

She’d born untold ridicule from everyone
she’d ever met and believed her father to be the only one who
understood and protected her. The past few days had turned her
beliefs on end. With the rise of her anger came another emotion:
gratitude for finding Jule, the one man who had accepted her.

Yully touched Jule’s medallion at her neck.
She’d make him proud and protect him and the rest of the Guardians
from her father, even if destroying her father took her own life.
The Guardians deserved this after losing so many of them.

Resolved, she trailed her father down the
hill, through the people who couldn’t see them, and to the awaiting
car. She couldn’t help thinking her life had been wasted and hoped
she still had a chance to make it up to the one person who
mattered.

Neither spoke on their return trip to the
bed and breakfast, and she went straight to her room. Yully slept
fitfully and awoke before dawn, unable to rest with her troubled
thoughts. She rose and stretched then left the small house on a
hill for a quick walk. The day dawned cloudy and cold with a light
rain that chilled her after ten minutes. She continued to walk,
needing to feel the cold to remind her she was still alive. She
returned and searched for her father.

The house was completely empty. Confused,
she paused at the back door and felt the telltale energy patterns
of the newly dead. There were twenty of them, far more than the
small house could hold. Something had happened last night while she
slept. Yully backed away from the door. She steadied her breathing,
swearing to herself that these would be the last to die at her
father’s hands.

Jule’s magic was stronger this day. It kept
her centered and prevented her from running for the hills tearing
her hair out. Instead, she prepared for the day as if it were her
last. She checked her weapons with scrutiny that would’ve made her
father proud and dressed in dark clothing loose enough for her to
fight.

Her father returned around noon, his
agitation apparent the moment he stepped in the door. Yully looked
up from her seat on the couch as he entered. He’d left the front
door open, and she saw the car was running, waiting.

“
We’re going now,” he
said, emerging from his room with a coat.

“
Yes, Father.” She rose
and trailed him from the house to the car, unable to guess what
could agitate him if killing people didn’t.

They drove in silence north again, towards
the ancient site. Yully grew more anxious the nearer they got; her
father was right about the magic feeling stronger. The air hummed
the closer they got. The chauffeur drove them straight to the hill.
Her father flung open the door and strode up the incline.

Yully followed more slowly, enjoying the
feeling of the power moving through her. She looked around, curious
as to why such a popular site was so quiet. Just as fast, she
looked away.

Her father hadn’t taken the time to bury
these people. They looked as if they’d been torn apart by some
monster she couldn’t imagine.

“
Come, Yully!”

Yully steadied her breathing and obeyed,
taking comfort in the power of the site. She tested it as she
walked to see how much effort it would take to control. The
energies flowing around her responded eagerly, and she molded and
released them.

She reached the top of the hill and gasped.
Her father dragged half a body from the center of the site to the
edge. She recognized the blond Guardian, and her chest
tightened.

“
Come, daughter,” her
father ordered.

Yully walked to the center of the monument.
The power pushed her off balance, and she caught herself before it
sent her sprawling into the blood pooled around her.

“
Father, why did you do
this?” she asked, unable to keep her silence any longer. “Rourk did
nothing wrong.”

“
No? Following us here,
reporting our movements to other Guardians?” her father snapped,
approaching her. “I spent the night defending you against them. You
think I want all this death?”

“
I think you don’t
care.”

He slapped her. “Keep quiet, and do as
you’re told. You cannot begin to imagine how long I’ve waited for
this night and what I’ve done to make sure it happens as it must.
No one will stand in my way, including you, my daughter.” He
continued past her, up the hill once more.

Yully touched her burning cheek. The site’s
power comforted her, and she kissed Jule’s medallion. Her father
returned with a bag slung over his shoulder. She dreaded
discovering what it was until he ripped it open to display
woodchips.

“
Help me spread this
around,” he directed. “We need each element present.”

She obeyed. He brought three more bags while
she spread the woodchips around the monument. She was soon soaked
by a light drizzle and stretched to keep her stiffening muscles
warm. After the bags, he brought torches covered in plastic bags
and placed them by each column of the monument.

She finished spreading her woodchips and
watched him, taking refuge against the drizzle in the protection of
one column. It hummed with energy that spread through her, warming
her. Her father moved to the center of the monument and looked
around.

“
What next, Father?” she
ventured.

“
We wait.”

“
For what?”

“
For the Gods and
Guardians to come.”

“
We can’t perform the rite
without them?” she asked.

“
You’ll need their power
to puncture the gateway,” he said. “As strong as I am, mine won’t
be enough. Jule will come for you and bring the most powerful of
the immortals confined to earth.”

“
You promised not to kill
him if I cooperated, Father.”

“
We’ll see just how strong
your bond to him is. The only way for them to stop this is to kill
you. Do you think he’ll do it, daughter?”

“
No, Father,” she
whispered.

“
Then you’ve played your
part well, daughter. You made the one who can stop you fall in love
with you instead,” her father said.

“
You knew we belonged
together,” she said in a hushed tone.

“
Of course.”

“
You were setting me
up.”

“
My dear, what I do, I do
for us and our future. I saved your life. I thought you’d be happy
I spared him instead of burying him with the others.” He suddenly
cocked his head to the side. “Wait here.”

Yully’s eyes went to Rourk’s body. She moved
to the center of the monument and opened herself to the magics. She
sensed her father and the Guardians he went to meet on the other
side of the hill. There weren’t many of them, but they were
powerful. One source of energy was darker than a stormy sky while
another was as bright as the sun. Puzzled, she concentrated on two
more sources of magic. She thought one might be Jule, but the
energies faded in and out too quickly to tell.

The sky began to dim, and she played with
the magic, adrenaline speeding the power’s flow through her. It
acclimated to her and accepted her until it obeyed her thoughts
before she thought them.

Her father was right. She would need much
more power to counter his, and the Guardians could provide it. She
wondered again what he was that he was so strong.

Identifying his magic, she avoided it and
began to draw from the others. Something blocked the storm and sun
sources she’d felt, but the others flowed to her freely. Yully let
the power fill her and mix with the other energies, staving off
panic that there was much more than she could ever control.

“
Daughter.” Her father’s
voice broke her concentration.

Yully opened her eyes and released the magic
she’d pulled in. She was floating again, and she dropped to her
feet. Dusk had fallen while she tested the magic and her ability to
control it. The torches around the circle were lit. She faced her
father, not expecting to see the small crowd of people on the other
side of the monument. She recognized Damian, Darian, Jonny, the
woman who accompanied Jonny, and several others. Her father stood
near her in the center.

“
Alive or dead, their
energy will feed you, daughter,” her father said. He gathered his
power, and an orb of light formed in his hands.

“
No, Father. Let me face
them,” she said.

“
If you think to betray
me, daughter, Jule dies,” he warned for her ears only.

“
Their energies are
stronger when they’re alive. You said we needed everything we could
get,” she replied. “Please, Papa. You’ve prepared me for this
day.”

His eyes lingered on her face for a moment,
and then he held out his hand.

“
Start with mine. Funnel
it upward. Do it, now.”

She took his hand and absorbed what she
could of his power. It mingled with the magic of the monument, and
she threw it upward, towards the sky. Light rippled through the
clouds.

“
Again.”

She obeyed, this time keeping some back.

“
Now, take theirs and do
the same.”

The men had crept closer. Her father fell
back, and she took a deep breath before approaching the men. She
felt Jule’s presence without seeing him.

“
I’ll go,” Darian said,
stepping in front of her. He drew a knife and lowered his
stance.

Yully pulled what she could of his energy
into her body. As if feeling what she did, Darian lunged at her.
The magic took hold of her, and she danced away from his strikes as
if they were in slow motion. His knife blade grazed her once and
turned into a feather that he flung away. He snatched her throat,
and she closed her eyes, pulling his magic into her and using it to
fling him away.

Her father laughed coldly. The magic made
her head spin, but she focused on the two most powerful sources:
Damian and Jonny. A large form stepped in front of them suddenly,
blocking her. She stared at the towering man with red eyes, not
sensing him at all.