The Black God (#2, Damian Eternal Series) (24 page)

“Agreed. I have a backup list no one else
has seen.” Charles maneuvered the screen to his email and sent the
file to Jonny. “Just have Stu send out the message before dawn
about who goes where.”

Jonny nodded and observed the screen as it
returned to the five raid parties. Something else was bothering
him, but he wasn’t quite able to pinpoint what. It was more than
concern for his vamps after the disastrous raids the night before,
more than his uncertainty about Ashley. “I can’t shake the feeling
something isn’t right,” he said for Charles’ ears only. “If you run
into anything unusual, if anyone does, contact me immediately. I
can stop another ambush before it kills our people.”

“At a steep cost,” Charles reminded him.
“You risk losing Valon and Brandon.”

“But if I save a hundred of my people, I’ll
do it.”

Charles nodded. “The Natural cleared to
go?”

“She is. Make sure she doesn’t try
anything,” he said, aware of how quickly Ashley was likely to
change her mind about their deal if she sensed Brandon in
danger.

“I’ve got a backup Taser,” Charles
replied.

“Good.” Jonny lowered the screen. “I’ll
monitor from here.”

Charles nodded and left his side for the
small team awaiting him. Ashley was already with the vamps wearing
yellow wristbands. The one, Hector, she’d partnered with on her
previous raid seemed to be less uncomfortable about talking to her
while the rest of them stood aside.

They respected her, which was enough for
Jonny. But they also harbored few good feelings for any
Natural.

Charles joined them and briefed his team
before one of the Traveler returned from his current mission to
drop off another team.

Jonny watched them vanish and returned to
the makeshift headquarters, where a team of four vamps and Stu
monitored the missions from multiple computers. He stood back to
watch, arms across his chest and tightness in his frame. He was
about to begin pacing when one of his wards tripped. He tensed, the
hair on the back of his neck rising.

He traveled to the edge of his wards, a good
mile from the central camp.

The Grey God awaited him.

“What is it?” Jonny asked, bristling.

“Chill, Jonny.” The Grey God was relaxed.
“I’m not here to interfere.”

“Damian send you to observe?”

“No. Just wanted to warn you about
something.”

Jonny waited, not convinced the White God’s
brother hadn’t come for some ulterior purpose.

“The Others tech you’re using. I can sense
it,” Darian started. “It’s a locational talisman?”

Jonny said nothing.

“Anyway, it works both ways. You can find
anyone, but anyone can also find you,” Darian explained. “More
specifically, any Tracker who can sense Others is going to sense it
like I did.”

“There are very few who were able to sense
Others.”

“Most of them were part of the old guard
from both sides.”

Jonny considered this. Valon had older
Trackers with him. It was possible one or more sensed the Others
talisman. If so, had they purposely not attacked him or were they
still figuring it out?

“And … my personal opinion, not exactly
shared by Damian,” Darian continued, “is that you can use it to
draw Valon to you. Damian doesn’t think you can take out Valon and
prefers you in charge, even if you don’t always see eye to eye. But
if you want to end this fast, use the talisman.”

“Let him know in no uncertain terms where I
am and challenge him directly,” Jonny said.

“Exactly.”

“You agree with Damian?” Jonny spoke with
resentment.

“Not really.” Darian flashed a smile. “Five
years ago, three years, even six months ago, I’d agree. But you
told him to fuck off for the first time this week and you were
right about everything. He’s not ready to see it yet but he’ll come
around.”

Jonny studied him, not expecting any of the
White God’s allies to show him any sign of respect.

“He wants Brandon,” Darian added. “Xander
won’t let him have Jessi or Brandon, and we’ve never seen Natural
powers like either. If you can deliver Brandon, and wrangle
Xander’s consent in the process, he won’t fight you about Ashley
like he plans to.”

“You know this for a fact?”

“It’s a gut feeling.”

“Why are you trying to help me?”

“I’m not entirely. I have my reasons for
wanting to see Brandon officially accepted into the Guardian
network as well. Part of that revolves around me not trusting
Xander. He holds most of the cards pretty much all the time, and
I’m always interested in evening out the balance of power.”

“This is politics.”

“It is.”

Jonny considered. Negotiating with either
God was always a double-edged sword, and it was a rare day when he
didn’t end up cut to pieces by it. “Brandon should be free to make
his own choice, same as Ashley,” he said finally. “I’m not going to
promise you anything.”

“You don’t have to. I’m advising you the way
I do Damian. It’s sort of what I’m supposed to do. And you’ve
already spoken for Ashley. From what I understand, she’s
yours.”

“For now,” he allowed.

“Wouldn’t you like a way to balance
Xander?”

Jonny’s thoughts went to all the favors he’d
one day owe Xander. The Original Vamp was no threat today, but
Darian was right. The politics of the gods and the Originals
shifted often, and they didn’t always agree on the bigger
picture.

“You keep Ashley. We keep Brandon,” the Grey
God said.

On the surface, it was smart for each side
to have a pawn, a means to hold Xander in check. But the idea made
Jonny unusually anxious. If he kept Ashley too long, he risked
becoming vulnerable. He didn’t buy Charles’ and her insistence he
needed an emotional cause in addition to his primary purpose as the
Black God. As he thought, he became aware of something else.

“This is the first time any of you have
dealt with me like I’m not the noob you consider me,” he said
icily. “Is this a game, Darian?”

“As far as I’m concerned, you aren’t a noob.
You’re the Black God. You and I have been in power for about the
same amount of time. Like I said – Damian isn’t ready to see that
yet.”

“I’ll consider what you’re saying. I do tend
to agree with Xander that everyone has the right to decide his or
her own fate,” Jonny said. “For me to hand over Brandon would rob
him of his choices. Ashley already made her decision.”

“And someone can never choose differently,”
Darian said wryly.

Jonny stiffened. The idea he’d lose her sat
as well as the danger of her staying. He wasn’t certain what he
wanted to happen, and he wasn’t in a mindset to decide quite
yet.

“No offense meant.” Darian raised his hands.
“Just think about what I said.”

“I will.” Jonny drew a breath. “And I
appreciate your warning. Now get the fuck out of here.”

Darian winked and Traveled immediately.

Jonny remained for a moment, considering
what he’d learned about the talisman. Its integration with the
software Stu designed and Brandon’s locational probability
algorithm was working well – with a potentially lethal side effect.
Rather than feel relieved to understand an unknown threat, Jonny
was more interested as to why Valon hadn’t yet exploited his
location.

He Traveled to the command center and
motioned to Tasha.

“Evac this location and the others
immediately,” he ordered. “I’ll email a list of backup locations.
Assign everyone to one randomly.”

“Yes,
ikir,
” she said and hurried
away.

“Stu,” he said sharply enough for the hacker
to jump in his seat. “I need the laptop where the talisman is
stored.”

Stu bent over and lifted one of the four
laptops sitting at his feet. Without a real command center, he was
forced to swap them in and out on the table before him as needed.
He handed it to Jonny.

The faint tingle of magic reached him, and
Jonny Traveled without telling anyone why. Rather than go to one of
the new locations, he went to a place Valon knew well: the large
wooden mansion in the middle of the forest where he had first gone
as the Black God.

The place had been torched, and the house
perched on the ledge of a canyon in the Rocky Mountains was nothing
more than cinders. It was cool this high up in the mountains, and
the trees swayed gently in a quiet breeze.

Jonny stood alone in the stillness, the
laptop clutched under one arm. He had spent almost three years in
this place, sometimes hiding, sometimes struggling, sometimes
learning lessons that left him weeping and resentful of his lot in
life.

It felt strange to return and remember those
first horrific months when he’d learned both to lead and to kill.
This place was a reminder of who he had been, one that affected him
more than he wanted it to.

It was symbolic of his past life and how
he’d burned down everything – even the house – when he reached the
point of no return and emerged from the transformation into the man
he was today.

His former headquarters was the perfect
place for a confrontation with Valon. Out with the old guard and
old ways for good, and in with everything Jonny represented.

Jonny crossed to where the porch of the old
house used to stand and knelt, lifting a piece of its charred
remains. He had tried to crush his heart the way he had his past
without luck. Unlike the former headquarters, his heart still
burned with embers of humanity.

He set down the laptop before him. If Valon
were watching, he’d understand this for what it was: an invitation.
A dare. A promise that Jonny was going to finish the job. Once
Jonny had worn down Valon’s resistance movement, once he had
Brandon back and his own vamps safe, he’d face Valon at the place
where he felt most powerful: where his transition had once
begun.

“How’s that for motivation, Charles?” Jonny
whispered into the night.

“Ashley.”

It was the second time she’d heard someone
say her name and seen no one. She did a full three-sixty and then
went still, senses on high alert. The safehouse was in the lower
level of a two story building in a historic district in a tiny town
in Rhode Island. Quaint brick buildings lined a two lane,
cobblestone street. The downtown area was quiet and void of traffic
and people this late of night.

She heard Charles and the other vamps
searching the rest of the building and started forward again. Only
five vamps had been present and very quickly dispatched. The first
time she heard her name, she’d been on the second floor, looking
for anyone hiding, and had followed the direction of the
sound. She walked cautiously in the direction of the voice,
weapons drawn. Her senses picked up no one, but she wasn’t one to
hear things, either.

She cleared two more rooms and reached the
end of a hallway before she heard it for a third time.

“Ashley.”

A muted whisper before, it sounded a lot
like Brandon this time.

“Brandon?” she called softly. Her adrenaline
soared, and she tensed, ready to kill anyone within ten feet of her
brother.

No answer.

She backtracked to the middle of the hallway
and held her breath.

“Ashley. Are you there?”

Brandon’s voice came from one of the rooms
she’d already searched. Ashley returned and looked around. It was
an office with nowhere to hide, not even a closet or file
cabinet.

“Please tell me you’re there.”

She cocked her head to the side and
approached the desk. The quiet purr of the computer beneath the
desk was audible, though the screen connected to it was dark. She
clicked it on.

Her heart seized in her chest.

Brandon sagged in his seat before the
monitor on the other side. A bandage was wrapped around half his
head, and his remaining eye was focused listlessly on the keyboard
before him. He was pale, sickly, weak.

“Brandon,” she whispered, stricken by the
sight of her brother.

“Thank god,” he said. “I thought he’d kill
you.”

“Where are you?” she demanded. “Why are they
hurting you?”

“I can’t talk now.”

“Brandon …” The shadow on the wall behind
him shifted despite his lack of movement, and she realized her
brother hadn’t hacked their systems to contact her; they’d put him
up to this. She squeezed her fists hard enough for the nails to
bite into her palms.

“Valon says if you surrender, he’ll let us
both go when he’s done with Jonny,” Brandon said.

“After chopping you into pieces? There’s no
fucking way he’s serious!” she exclaimed.

“He says … he won’t hurt me again if you do
what he says and then turn yourself over to him.”

Her throat tightened. No part of her
believed Valon was serious about sparing anyone. But the sight of
her brother in this condition destroyed any rationale.

“He says … in the desk is something that
will let you disable Jonny.”

Her heart skipped a beat. She had been
purposely not thinking about Jonny, about how tender of a lover he
was and how poorly she’d convinced herself she stopped caring for
him when he betrayed her long ago. When she stilled long enough for
her mind to roam, she felt his warm, strong palms skimming her body
once more, experienced the pure ecstasy of him sliding into her and
kissing her with passion she hadn’t thought him capable of. He had
claimed her with gentleness and persistence, touched her with
reverence and whispered her name in a low, husky voice that dripped
with desire and affection. That she could experience him every
night she bore his brand, become the sole focus of his entire
world, rendered her breathless. She’d wanted him and yet been
scared as well, and he’d shown her a level of ecstasy she’d never
imagined possible.