The Black God (#2, Damian Eternal Series) (2 page)

“Ikir,
” said Charles, Jonny’s second-in-command. He referred to him
using the immortal word denoting a king or god, an ancient
tradition left over from the time when the immortal realm
existed.

Jonny met his gaze.

“We’re alone?”

Jonny nodded.

“We have a problem.”

“Don’t we always?” Jonny replied wryly.

“This is a new problem,” Charles said.

“Can it wait for us to go back to the
lodge?”

“We can’t go back to the lodge. That’s part
of the problem.”

Jonny’s brow furrowed. He waited for his
tense second to speak. Charles, normally blunt, was hesitant.

“There are some vamps who disagree with …
things,” Charles started. “Some who have taken matters into their
own hands. It started with the catch-and-release proposal you
emailed everyone about last week.”

“I’m sure it started before that,” Jonny
said. “I know there’s an undercurrent of dissatisfaction with me
being in charge. It’s not just Damian who doesn’t like it.”

“Change is always difficult, more so to an
organization that’s been around for over ten thousand years.”

“Then what’s the newest problem?”

“We lost some vamps to what I’ll call a
mutiny.”

Jonny almost laughed. How did any of his
vamps have the energy to form a mutiny when they’d been obsessively
pursuing the Others for so long? “All right. So we have a few
volunteers to be disciplined publicly. We’ll make them examples,”
he said.

“Hmmm. Yeah that’s not
going to work,
ikir.
We lost almost half of our vamps.”

Jonny’s humor faded. “Did you say half?”

Charles nodded.

Coño
!
The foul curse word he’d learned
from his Cuban grandfather had been used more the past few months
than any other single word he knew.

The news of his rebellion was nowhere near
expected and yet, after the strain of the past few years, Jonny
didn’t feel its impact. He was too numbed, too fatigued, to react
how he suspected he should. “Just when I thought things were going
to ease up for a bit … I guess our night isn’t over yet, is it,
Charles?”

“No,
ikir.
I think our night is just
beginning.”

I’m not telling Damian
about this one,
Jonny vowed to himself.
With any luck, his six months of relative peace from the direction
of the White God would give him the room he needed to fix his
latest mess. Was that all leadership really was? Dealing with one
emergency after another?

If nothing else, his pursuit of the Others
had taught him a thing or two about patience. “Pick a backup
location. Somewhere warm,” he ordered. “I’m from Miami. I’m sick of
this cool weather shit.”

“We’ll need a new location. The vamps who
went rogue are from the old guard. They know our current backlist
of locations,” Charles said. “They also probably know you hate cold
weather. I’d advise avoiding Miami for now.”

Jonny rested his hands on his hips. Being a
god with incredible power was rarely as appealing as it sounded.
“Fine,” he said finally. “Surprise me. Just don’t send us to the
fucking Tundra.”

Several months later

Jonny sucked in deep breaths as he observed
the results of the mini-massacre on the rooftop of a tall hotel
overlooking the San Diego Bay. Moonlight glinted off waves caused
by a cargo ship ambling past, some forty stories below, and wisps
of fog strayed from the ocean into the bright yet quiet city.

“Forty three,” reported the red-eyed vamp
beside him.

“All vamps?”

“All
new
vamps.”

That’s what I
thought.
Jonny did the calculations before
dropping from the ventilation box on which he stood onto the roof.
His hands were coated in the blood of vamps he’d killed this night,
and the metallic flavor was in his mouth. He licked away the
droplets from his fangs and spit them out.

Unlike humans, vamps tasted horrible. He’d
long since come to the conclusion it was probably an evolutionary
survival thing, so no vamp would resort to eating another. They had
no problem eating everything else that breathed.

“We’re not moving fast enough. They’re
vamping twice as fast as we are,” he said finally, aware his second
in command was waiting. “We need better and more intel,
Charles.”

“I’m working on it.” Charles followed his
gaze. “There’s always the last resort for information.”

“I’m not going to
them,
” Jonny returned.
“They can’t know about this after the mess with the
Others.”

“We don’t have to tell them how bad it is.
We just have to ask them for information tracking a few rogue
vamps.”

Jonny clenched his jaw tight enough for the
muscles of his cheek to pulse. In the years since he’d become the
Black God, he’d struggled to control the legions of vamps
accustomed to a different master, an older one, one they feared.
They hadn’t respected the terrified teen boy that took the former
god’s place. However, the vamp army was largely united under the
common threat of the Others, the primary supernatural threat to the
vamps.

On the eve of his final triumph, the rogue
element of his vamp army - led by Valon, a member of the old guard
who hated the new Black God - broke off and formed their own
independent group.

The newer generation of vamps stuck with
Jonny, rendering the division along generational lines as well as
philosophical ones. He was struggling to recruit and train the
younger vamps when much of the support infrastructure he needed had
not yet been rebuilt. In the meantime, the vamp veterans were
running circles around them.

His rebellion had turned into a civil
war.

“No,” he said at last. “That’ll invite too
many questions. You’re the best Tracker there is. We’re catching
up.”

“I’m the only Tracker there is.”

It wasn’t funny at such a time, but Jonny
fought a smile anyway. Charles’ dry wit was often inappropriately
timed and almost always appreciated.

Charles pulled a cell phone out of his
pocket. He read the report texted to him.

“What is it?” Jonny asked. One of the few
vamps he trusted completely, he didn’t bother trying to access
Charles’ thoughts, a trick he’d picked up while learning how to
harness his newfound power.

“Vigilante got one of our teams.”

Jonny rolled his eyes. “I don’t have time
for some stupid Natural running around beating up vamps. He’ll
cross the wrong vamp soon enough.” He started walking through the
bodies to ensure every one of his enemies was dead. Valon was too
smart to send anyone with real value against him. The recruits
would have no idea where their leader was hiding.

“He usually targets the rogue elements and
not us. Too bad he never kills any of them or he might be worth
directing towards the rogues,” Charles mused, following.

“The idiot will be dead in a week or
less.”

“Yeah. You want me to do the usual here?” He
motioned to the dead bodies around them.

Jonny glanced around, unconcerned about
leaving the bodies of traitors. The smell of newly turned vamps,
however, made him pause. His new recruits, as well as those being
led by the rogue leader Valon, were mixed among the dead. “You know
what? We’re leaving them this time. But remove their fangs
first.”

Charles raised an eyebrow.

“Fangs to show the rogues and our own
recruits how serious I am about betrayal. Bodies for the White God
to clean up for once, since I’m doing him a favor killing half my
people.”

“Smart as always.” The vamp chuckled. “We’ve
got human witnesses. What do you want done with them?”

Jonny didn’t even bother looking towards the
five hotel employees herded into a corner by three of his loyal
vamps. “Dinner,” he said. “Catch and release protocol.”

“Want one saved for you?”

“Female, red hair.”

“Always delicious.” Charles said,
entertained. A true predator, he never cared about the appearance
of whoever he drained, but Jonny had taken a liking to redheads for
dinner. “I’ll take her back to your place. We had a good
night.”

It was hard for Jonny to be optimistic when
his failure as a leader had lead directly to this night.
Inexperience and war, combined with the changes he’d implemented in
a culture and organization whose traditions spanned tens of
thousands of years before he was born, resulted in constant crisis.
Reform came at a steep price, one he was beginning to suspect would
cost him over seventy percent of the vamps remaining before this
mess was over.

“Did our team report in with the talisman?”
he asked.

“Not yet.” Charles checked his phone.

“If they’re late, send in as many as you can
spare to rescue them. We can’t let the rogue vamps get it.” With
the Others out of play, he’d stumbled upon one of their secrets
while tracking and eliminating the last of them. The Others were
able to locate vamps and Guardians at will, which was one of the
reasons they were such a threat. No one was able to hide.

Once he figured out how to use it, the
otherworldly device would make the difference between him defeating
the rogue elements and Valon’s vamps winning this war. His only
challenge was preventing word from leaking to the Guardians about
his civil war before he could stop it.

“Understood,” said Charles. “You headed
back?”

Jonny shook his head. “I need to ask someone
something.”

“Ah. Good luck.”

Jonny didn’t reply. Charles could help him
with tactics and strategy, but so could anyone else who had been
around long enough. His ongoing struggle was with understanding the
power of a god charged with being the devil. His off and on
guidance came in the form of the Original Vamp, the first natural
born vamp, who was as dangerous as he was helpful. Jonny was tired
of not knowing how to fix his own issues without asking for help
from someone likely to cash in the favors one day. On nights like
these, he didn’t feel like he had much of a choice.

He Traveled to a nearby beach and knelt to
wash his hands in the cold waters running onto shore. Releasing a
breath, he rolled his shoulders and head, unable to shake the wired
frustration he’d been dealing with for the past four months. As
much as he loved the ocean, it wasn’t helping calm his nerves this
night.

Being a god wasn’t easy. Being the Black God
… well, he’d had to unlearn a lifetime of reality in order to
embrace his duty. His job was to ensure the survival of a race of
predators who fed off humans, and he’d long since reached the
conclusion he couldn’t do it alone. He didn’t have the numbers or
the infrastructure he needed.

The vamp way of life for the past ten
thousand years wasn’t sustainable. He’d already won one war and
wasn’t anywhere near capable of facing another so soon. He wasn’t
willing to continue the long-standing war with the White God when
the casualties were already too high – and disproportionately
vamp.

To preserve his people, he needed peace. And
peace meant difficult compromise.

“What is it?” the low growl came from the
mentor he hadn’t been certain he wanted to see.

Jonny straightened and faced Xander, the
biggest vamp and man he’d ever seen in his life. With long, dark
hair and glowing red eyes, Xander was about as welcoming as Jonny’s
dinner would be when his intentions became clear. Having been
warned off multiple times from approaching the secluded house where
Xander and his family lived, Jonny had begun going to a beach
nearby, close enough for Xander’s protective wards to warn him but
not so close as to make the psychopathic vamp hostile.

“I have a small problem,” Jonny began, not
about to admit the full truth to the creature who bartered
information to White and Black Gods, depending on whose side he
felt like being on.

“I haven’t heard those words in a
while.”

Jonny bit back his initial
response. Xander was a vamp, yes, but he wasn’t
his
vamp and he was well connected.
“Yeah. Believe it or not I figured out some stuff.”

“I believe it.” Xander’s muscular arms were
across his chest. He approached and paused at the edge of where the
water reached the sand. “I always knew you had potential. How
bad?”

“Pretty bad,” Jonny allowed.

“Does it have anything to do with the vamps
you’re whacking?”

“Yeah.”

Xander glanced at him. “Not just cleaning
house or disciplining vamps, are we?”

“It’s partially it,” Jonny replied.

“Damian believes you to be crushing any
dissension in the ranks. But I have a feeling there’s something
else going on.”

“It’s none of your business, or his, Xander,
how I do my job,” Jonny said firmly.

“Fine. What am I doing here?”

“Was my predecessor able to track
vamps?”

“You have trackers for that.”

Sorta.
Two of his three Trackers, except for Charles, had absconded
with the rogues. “I know. But even they sometimes run into
difficulties. They can only track within certain distances and
under specific conditions.”

Xander was quiet briefly before responding.
“He could, yes. The White God’s powers are known quantities, passed
down from father to son. But each Black God is going to have a
slightly different set of abilities than his predecessor based on
what you inherited from the Naturals before you.”

“Can those gifts be delayed in appearing?
Like my mind abilities suddenly appearing during year three?”

“They can. Some can lay dormant for
centuries or millennia before emerging.”