Lizzy Ford (9 page)

“Hmmm. The one creature I can’t kill is after me.”

“With your long list of enemies, I’m not certain which would’ve sent them. But they want something. They’ve been watching you.”

Xander considered the information. He wasn’t able to track the Others, a set of creatures known for favoring the Black God’s dominance of the human world. The Others were mortal enemies of the Watchers, whose more lenient approach on good and evil made them fickle allies for the White God. Neither sect was supposed to interfere in mortal affairs, a fact they selectively ignored. He knew better than to trust either of them.

“We still have the vamp Jonny lent us to help track Others. If you want to borrow him and kill some Others, let me know. Darian and I will join you.”

The sole immortal able to disable Others and Watchers, the Grey God – Darian – was known for being fearless to the point of reckless. He had newly assumed his position after thousands of years without the Gatekeeper existing, since Xander killed the last Grey God.

He liked Darian’s recklessness. Unable to shake his instincts, His thoughts turned to the Black God. The godling seemed surprised to see Xander last night. Was his surprise that of a kid caught with his hand in the cookie jar?

“Call me if you need help,” Jule said.

“Alright.”

“You’re welcome,” Jule said, snorting. “We Originals gotta stick together.”

“That’s the agreement.”

“You know I’m serious?”

“On all counts, yes,” Xander replied. The gentleman’s agreement between them had been tested and proven solid. He knew Jule was able to balance his alliance with the White God and his alliance with Xander. Jule was as close as trustworthy as someone ever got in Xander’s book.

“I’ll send Sofi your love.”

“Fuck you, Jule.”

Jule laughed. He disappeared as quietly as he appeared. Xander suspected the Oracle warned him only because it interfered in her plans for him. At least, that’s what he’d do. She promised to make his fate hell the last time they met. Uneasily, he was forced to admit she had the power.

Xander hated the idea of not being in control. His agenda was one born of experience: if the scales between the White and Black Gods tipped too far one way, life was bad. So he nudged the scales back in the right direction, sometimes pushing evil, sometimes good, sometimes pissing off both. After all, he was the single most powerful immortal on the planet, and the oldest. No one else gave a shit about the Original Vamp, unless to kill him. If he kept their attention divided and their focus on their turf wars, he was largely overlooked.

Xander hated - but respected – Sofi. She promised personal vengeance against him but not at the expense of the loss of other lives. It was her catch-twenty-two: she needed him alive to use him as a tool to nudge the scales. He needed her insight, for when he wasn’t able to see outside his narrow lane. It gave him some level of confidence that her warning was one born of necessity, not idle speculation.

It was bad news for him, though, if the Oracle who hated him felt the need to warn him. Xander spent another moment in pensive silence before he rose.

He might need to pay the Oracle a visit.

But not today.

Someone else tripped the wards marking his territory of Southern California, someone he didn’t expect to be alive. Of the five Original Beings, he only knew where one was. The others he hoped had died when the immortal world was destroyed months ago by the Grey God. He’d never be able to sense the Original Other or Original Watcher, since they were able to move without detection by anyone, even their own kind.

The Original Human, however, just crossed into his territory. Xander let his instincts take him to the latest unwelcome creature to interfere with his world. He Traveled to a quiet playground, eyes settling on the woman seated on a bench.

Xander wasn’t the only to notice. No sooner had he appeared than the Grey God himself materialized. Wiry and lean, Darian’s golden gaze was identical to that of his brother, the White God. The Grey God was known as the Gatekeeper, the God responsible for tracking and managing the immortals in the human realm.

“Two Originals,” Darian said, gleam in his eyes. “You guys made my day.”

“I am not here to fight, though I will not speak for Xander,” the Original Human said. “It is good to see the position of Grey God filled once more. How long has it been, Xander, since you killed the last one?”

“Xander killed him?” Darian asked with a laugh. “When Xander tells the story, it was the Originals that did it.”

“Not so far off,” Xander replied. He circled the bench, until he was able to see the features of the Original Human more fully.

Her aristocratic features were strong and firm, her eyes the color of spring, circled by silver. Xander remembered her older and realized he had always viewed Eden through the eyes of the child who embarked on a journey with the Oracle obsessed with destroying the last Grey God. Eden was little older than Xander, the day he was made immortal.

“Like a family reunion,” Eden said.

Xander felt her gaze and sat on a bench facing her. Darian looked between the two of them, wary but curious. No one spoke. Xander held Eden’s gaze. He felt nothing for the beautiful woman before him, not even anger, despite their shared history. He dwelled on the unexpected lack of emotion.

Eden had been more than a friend, assuming the role of Xander’s mother when his died. Then betraying him. Binding his power. Putting him through years of hellish pain to teach him a lesson about something she knew nothing about.

Yet Xander felt nothing negative towards her. The inability to know how he should react puzzled him.

“Okay, here are the rules.” Darian was the first to break the tense silence. “No fighting where humans might get hurt. If either of you fucks up, I get to kill you. If you want a mediator, let me know. I’ll be standing by the monkey bars. Got it?”

Xander and Eden nodded. Darian strode away towards the large jungle gym, out of hearing distance but close enough to watch and react.

“I’ll admit. I didn’t expect you to be so …calm,”  Eden said, puzzled. “You weren’t when last we met.” The familiar lilt of her accent was still present.

“Your parting gifts gave me a lot to think about,” Xander replied. “Though your choice of handing off the vamps to the Black God seems nearsighted.”

“From molten metal to the tempered steel of a blade,” Eden replied. “You’re more dangerous now, aren’t you?”

“More cautious as well.”

Eden smiled. “I didn’t turn over the vamps to the Black God. You can thank the Original Watcher for screwing up that one.”

“You must be happy,” Xander continued, not surprised to find another Original involved in his years of torture. “You wanted the threat to the mortal realm gone, and now it is.”

“That was my goal. I wish I’d been involved in the latest war to protect my kind. I guess that’s the punishment for our roles in the Schism – being pushed aside and forced to watch,” Eden said, referring to the war that severed the two realms completely from one another. It took the magic of all the Original Beings to support the cause Eden had dedicated her life to.

It’s what earned all the Originals their ten thousand year prison terms.

Eden was troubled. Xander didn’t expect to see the emotion from the woman who all-but-raised him.

“What’re you doing here, Eden?” he asked.

“Curiosity. Boredom.” Eden said, gaze stormy. “I remember you differently.”

“Born a predator, turned into a killer by none other than you.”

“Exactly. Not sure what you are now.”

“You created this version of me as well.”

“Do you hate me for it?”

Xander considered for a moment. “I don’t open wounds that are healed, Eden.”

“Good philosophy to have. Humans are a little different. We tend to never forget.”

“What do you want?”

Eden leaned back. “I guess to ask you another question, if you’ll answer.”

“No guarantees.”

“Understood, son. I spent my eternity dedicated to protecting the human realm from the immortal one. It fell, and I had nothing to do with it, but I’ll be Machiavellian about it and simply appreciate the end result,” Eden said and then paused. She was pensive for a moment. “You lived for nothing but revenge. You got your vengeance, just as I saw my goal realized. What comes next?”

“You sought
me
out for advice?” Xander asked with a laugh.

“We are all that remain from our time. Tell me you did not seek out Jule when you stumbled back into this realm.”

Xander was silent, recalling how Eden always found a way to push past his defenses enough to manipulate him. Older and wiser, Xander was aware of what she did now, just as he was starting to understand the identity crisis that caused Eden to seek him out.

At one point, after he succeeded in killing his father, he did hate the woman who taught him bloodlust and war, then slammed on the brakes to cage the beast she created. Eden used Xander for her own means and yet, the Original Human’s final acts of limiting Xander’s power had been selfless. She had a weapon capable of destroying the immortal realm but had chosen not to unleash Xander completely, knowing what might happen if she did.

If Eden succeeded, Xander died, a fact he didn’t learn for many years after she left him writhing in agony on the roof of a tavern.

No, he didn’t hate Eden.

“You move on,” Xander replied.

“Not exactly the answer I sought.”

“It’s all there is.”

“There’s no greater purpose?” Eden asked. She ran a hand through her short, dark hair. “I mean, what do you do?”

“I make sure ambitious people like you don’t fuck up this world.”

“You? A white knight?” Eden laughed.

“More like the black knight everyone hates but won’t piss off,” Xander said.

“Very fitting.”

“You’re free to do whatever you want here.”

“Free,” Eden murmured. “Interesting take on it. Never considered myself enslaved to my cause.”

“I avoid attachments of any kind,” Xander said.

“Here we differ. You are happy having nothing and living alone in the shadows. I am not.”

“Having nothing?” Xander repeated, irritated. “I think of it as remaining invulnerable, something you taught me.”

“I guess I did, didn’t I, boy?”

Xander rolled his eyes. Eden’s smile was genuine, the first Xander had ever seen. The driven woman was different than Xander remembered; this Eden had no vamp-army or grandiose plan of destroying a world. She seemed … lost.

“Darian,” Xander called.

The Grey God approached. The Original Human eyed him.

“Darian, meet Eden. Eden, Darian,” Xander said and rose. “Good luck.”

He walked away, Traveling back to his condo.

You are happy having nothing.

Of all the things Eden might’ve said to him, this one actually stung. Xander didn’t exactly know why. If he wanted something, he took it.

His cat nuzzled one leg as he stood, thinking hard, in the middle of his bright condo. After the months he spent making sure no one killed the new Black God before Jonny found his footing, Xander began to think he might’ve …forgotten something. He went from ten thousand years in exile to Jonny’s camp to here.

He didn’t have
nothing
: he had what he wanted.

Why, then, did he feel a familiar stir of deep-set anger?

Chapter Four

Jessi rang the doorbell four times, nervously pacing in front of the closed door. No one answered. She eyed the high-tech security system. Instead of a key, there was a code to enter the condo located in a ritzy building on a private beach. She couldn’t imagine how much a place here cost. There was valet parking for residents and visitors, and her car was – by far – the oldest and cheapest among those in the drive.

Her palms were sweaty, her nerves fried. After her come-to-Jesus moment with Jonny, he’d left a further reminder in the form of a letter that awaited her on the pillow beside hers when she woke. He not only failed to wake anyone, but bypassed the quadruple-locked front door and the barred windows. Not that she slept much in the first place. Now, she never wanted to sleep again.

Pulling out the letter, she looked at the ten digit key code. Next to it was a warning.

Every day you fail to execute the task, the penalty for failure worsens.

Jessi didn’t want to know what that meant.

She typed in the code at noon exactly. She wasn’t going to be late on her first day, not because she cared what the client wanted, but because Jonny claimed to be watching every move she made. Whoever lived in this condo, he couldn’t be worse than the vampire she met last night.

With a deep breath, she typed in the code and entered the condo. The air conditioning was high enough to make her shiver, the bright interior settling her fear of walking into some crazy person’s house. The ground floor consisted of formal dining and living areas, to include a hearth whose chimney stretched all the way to the top of the condo, two stories up. The main floor felt like a hotel room, too formal and impersonal to be welcoming. The wall opposite her was all windows, with a beach on the other side.

“Hello?” she called.

No answer. Impressed already with the airy condo, she ascended the stairs to the second floor. It too, held the welcoming atmosphere of a hospital waiting room, with a living room, expansive kitchen, informal dining area and hallways leading off each side of the common areas. A railing lined the loft area overlooking the formal living area on the first floor. An iPad in a bright green case and a cell phone labeled
work phone!!!!!
was sitting on the table in the informal dining area, a sticky note on it.

Hey, new babysitter! Instructions are here. Read the seven rules CAREFULLY!!!!!!!!! And follow them. X doesn’t like disorder and stuff. See you in a week! XOXO Ingrid

Jessi opened the iPad and turned it on. The rules popped up on the screen. She found herself counting how many exclamation points Ingrid used before she read through the rules.