Damian's Immortal (War of Gods 3) (7 page)

She twisted in her seat to
look back at the figures fighting in the bright motion sensor
detection lights of the garage. Jule was knocked off his feet by a
hard blow but got back up, beckoning to the other creature with a
look of confidence out of place for his bloodied face. She
felt
he was weakening
with the same strange sense that told her where he was. He was a
fool if he thought he could fight a creature that didn’t
die!

Her heart pounding, she turned the car
around and drove back towards the dueling men. Yully kept her gaze
on the man Jule battled until his back was to her. She floored the
car’s accelerator, closed her eyes, and prayed she hit him.

There was a thump as the car smacked a body,
and her eyes flew open. Jule’s opponent was standing in her
headlights, staring at her, while Jule’s body rolled to a stop a
few feet away.

“
Oh, dear, god!” she
breathed.

The swordsman lifted a sword off the ground
and raised it, charging her. Yully spun out as she shoved her foot
to the floor again, wincing when she hit him and drove him into the
side of the garage. He flailed for a moment then went still, pinned
between the car and the garage.

Yully opened the door and looked around
wildly. Jule lay on the ground a short distance away.

“
Oh god, oh god, oh god,”
she said, running to him. She dropped beside him and rolled him
onto his back. “I’m so sorry!”

To her surprise, he chuckled and then
grimaced. His face was bloodied, and one arm was covered in blood
from his shoulder wound. He didn’t seem to be bleeding from
anywhere else, though she wasn’t sure she hadn’t damaged anything
else by running him over.

“
You hit me,” he managed
at last. He struggled to sit up, and she helped him.

“
I thought you were the
other guy,” she said, distraught.

“
Where is he?”

She pointed. He widened his eyes then
narrowed them in an attempt to focus. His opponent was flailing
again. Frantic, Yully pulled Jule to his feet and tried to balance
him.

“
I’m good,” he said. “I
can still fight.”

“
You’re a bloody mess!”
she snapped. She strained under the weight of his body, and they
staggered to her car.

“
And whose fault is that?”
he challenged.

“
I could’ve left
you!”

“
Oh, and not run me over?
I think I like that choice better.”

She all but fell with him into the car. The
man with the sword was beating it against the hood,, as if trying
to chop himself free. Yully shoved Jule fully into the passenger
seat of her car and ran to the driver’s side, throwing herself into
her seat. Backing the car up, she watched the man with the sword
drop to his knees and slowly stand.

She sped away, and they took off up the
driveway with the swordsman trailing. The small car fishtailed
around a curve, but she kept up the pace until she no longer saw
the man in her rearview mirror.

“
What was that thing?” she
asked, her whole body trembling.

“
Immortal bad guy,” he
said. “Never thought I’d say this, but I think I need a
doctor.”

“
He’ll follow us, won’t
he?”

“
Probably.”

“
Why aren’t you more
concerned?”

“
Sweetheart, I’m sitting
in your car bleeding to death. I think I’m doing pretty damn good,
considering I would’ve been able to kill him if you hadn’t shot and
run me over,” he replied in irritation.

Yully glanced at him. He looked bad. His
eyes were glazed and the car seat bloody. She squeezed the steering
wheel then reached into her coat pocket for her cell phone. The
moment she unlocked the screen to call her father, Jule’s gaze
sharpened. He snatched the phone and rolled down the window,
tossing it.

“
That’s all I need is
your
father
finishing me off,” he muttered.

She almost objected then realized it was
futile. Neither of them believed her father would let him live.

“
What do you want me to
do?” she asked.

“
Take us somewhere safe,
where your father won’t know where to find you.”

She chewed on her lip, thinking hard. Her
father kept her on a tight leash; was there anywhere he wouldn’t
find her?

“
Hello?” Jule prompted.
“Somewhere safe? A friend’s house? Preferably if the friend is a
doctor?”

“
I don’t have any
friends,” she said.

“
I find that hard to
believe.”

“
Stop mocking me. I’m so
fed up with people making fun of me because I’m different,” she
said, frowning.

“
That’s what you thought I
meant?” He chuckled and then coughed. “You’re beautiful and
courageous. I’d have thought you had tons of friends.”

She shot him a look, suspecting he was
messing with her. He was serious. Her anger turned to
embarrassment.

“
You’re getting weaker,”
she said, as aware of his condition as she was his warm body. The
bond between them was weakening with him.

“
Yeah.”

“
I think I know a
place.”

“
Don’t take me to your
father.”

“
I won’t. I kind of owe
you. You saved me. Well, you tried anyway.”

He muttered in response.

“
You’re the only one who’s
ever tried,” she added.

“
Glad I could
almost
help.”

His head dropped back against the headrest,
and she sped up. The familiar path down the coastline passed the
Cliffs of Moher and continued for a short distance. She meant what
she said; she had no friends, but a long time ago, she’d had one
whose family had a summer cottage near the coast. She went there
for two summers, until she began turning everything she touched
into something else, and her father was forced to pull her out of
school at the age of twelve.

Jule began shivering, and she turned up the
heat until it was too hot for her to stand. The rain picked up
again. Yully reached the turnoff for the cottage and sped as fast
as she could through a winding road. It dead-ended at the cottage,
surrounded by a stone fence line. She eased into the carport but
left the car running.

The cottage was vacant and the windows
boarded up for the winter. Yully went to the back door, which she
remembered always being open. Even it was locked. She wrapped her
hand around the doorknob and turned it from steel into a rag and
pushed the door open. She crept in and turned on a light, relieved
when it worked.

A pot-bellied stove in the middle of the
main room provided the main heat in the two-bedroom room cottage.
Wood was stacked beside it, and she turned the book sitting on the
coffee table into newspaper to burn. She struck fire with the third
match and tossed it into the stove. Newspaper crinkled and
crackled.

Yully returned to the car. Jule was sweating
and shaking. He was huddled forward and didn’t look at her when she
opened the car door. He stood, weaved on his feet, and started to
fall. She caught him, and they careened into the side of the car
before he caught his balance. Jule wrapped his arms around her. He
smelled of sweat and blood. His body was burning up.

She maneuvered him into the house, almost
dropping him in front of the fire.

“
I don’t know what to do,”
she said, kneeling beside him and starting to panic.

“
You’re gonna have to fix
me,” he said, as calm as she was not. “Start with gathering
blankets, hot water, a first-aid kit, any sort of bandages they
might have. And pliers.”

“
For what?”

“
So you can pull the arrow
out of my shoulder.”

She clamped her mouth shut, unwilling to
tell him the sight and scent of blood was already making her want
to vomit. She did as he said and ransacked the cabinets until she
found a small first-aid kit. It didn’t have the kind of bandages
she suspected he’d need for his shoulder, so she turned several
towels into thick bandages and added them to the pile.

“
Any sort of antibiotic in
there?” he asked through chattering teeth as she dumped the
contents of her arms next to him.

“
I think so,” she said and
held up a small syringe. She concentrated on it. When it didn’t
morph into something else, she knew it was what he wanted. “Yes, it
is.”

“
Shoot me up.”

“
I have an issue with
needles,” she said. “They make me pass out.”

“
Stab me with it before
you do.”

Yully swallowed hard and steadied herself.
She used scissors to cut off his shirt. Blood covered the tattoos
of his chest, and she wiped as much of it away as she could. Jule’s
eyes were closed and his skin clammy. She finally gripped what was
left of the arrow shaft with the pliers.

“
This might hurt,” she
said.

She pulled. Nothing happened. Yully stood,
tightened her grip, and yanked. Jule hissed through his teeth and
more blood bubbled up, but the lodged arrow refused to move.
Feeling stupid, she touched the arrow and turned it into a string
that she pulled free. Blood gushed from the wound. Lightheaded,
Yully sat heavily.

“
Pressure dressing. Push
hard, and shoot me up,” he instructed, though his voice was ragged.
“Then you get to sew me back together.”

“
If you’d stayed in the
basement, this wouldn’t have happened,” she told him.

“
And you’d be
dead.”

Her eyes watered. She didn’t want to think
about it, not when her hands were covered in the blood of her
attacker-turned-savior. She did as he said and pressed hard on the
arrow wound until the bleeding slowed.

The needle was smaller than she remembered
needles being, and she steadied her breathing before plunging it
into his arm.

“
Still with me?” he
asked.

“
Barely,” she said. “You
still with me?”

“
I’m not lucky enough to
die,” he said with a faint smile.

“
Good,” she said. She was
embarrassed by her half-laugh, half-sob that escaped. “I don’t feel
as alone when I’m with you. It would be a shame to lose you
already.”

He opened his eyes. His gaze was fevered but
steady. The sense that had told her where he was intensified within
her, as if they were close enough for their souls to touch again.
The sensation intrigued her after a lifetime of rejection and
isolation.

“
Not that I want you
around,” she added, not expecting her own words. She looked away
and fumbled with the needle and thread she’d found in a sewing kit.
“This might hurt.”

Nervous, she stabbed him harder than she
intended to, and Jule groaned, closing his eyes. By the time she’d
made the second stitch, he was unconscious and she was sick to her
stomach. She forced herself to sew the arrow wound the best she
could then ran from the room, vomiting in the bathroom.

Chapter Four

Jule awoke in a haze of hot and cold. His
body shook uncontrollably, and something warmed his side. He pushed
himself up, glancing at the Magician’s body. She was curled up
beside him in a tight ball. His tingling senses awoke him, but he
was too weak to do more than look around the room.

A hand clamped on his
shoulder. Too weak to push it off, he let his head drop back onto
the cushion behind him. He couldn’t focus on the face, but he saw
the glowing red eyes.
Vamp
. Adrenaline spun through him,
and he staggered up, ready to fight it off.

“
Easy,” the vamp said.
Maybe it was his delirium, but Jule thought the vamp looked larger
than even Damian. “You don’t remember me.”

“
Fucking vamp,” Jule
slurred. His head spun, and his legs belted. “Wait one minute. I’ll
kill you.”

The vamp chuckled. “No need. Look
closer.”

Jule rested where he’d fallen and tried to
concentrate. The vamp wasn’t attacking. In fact, it sat calmly on
the couch across the room from him.

“
I don’t know you,” Jule
said. “Should I?”

The vamp frowned. “Yes, you should. We all
know each other.”

“
Define
we
,” Jule
replied.

“
The
Originals.”

Jule sighed. “You’re a dream. The Original
Beings are locked up. The Watchers said so.”

“
What happened to you?”
the vamp asked, leaning forward in interest. Jule had the sense of
a memory at the edge of his fevered mind. He focused on it, trying
to recall why he felt he should recognize the vamp.

“
Xander,” he said. “Your
name is Xander.”

“
They wiped your mind,”
the vamp said. “I hope whatever you traded for your freedom was
worth living like this, if you call
this
living.”

“
Cassandra,” Jule
murmured.

“
No, she wasn’t why you
were exiled. No human could’ve caused this.”

“
Original Vamp,” Jule
said, barely registering the creature’s words. His body was on fire
again, and sweat trickled down his face. Xander’s face faded in and
out of focus, and his thoughts kept drifting away. Jule tried hard
to follow the conversation.