The Black God (#2, Damian Eternal Series) (5 page)

He still found it strange how he could mix
and mingle with people and no one suspected how different he was.
The world of the Black God had started off surreal. Now, it was the
everyday life of a human he could no longer imagine. With
immortality all but promised to him, he stopped seeking friendships
or family outside the circle of vamps. It hurt too much to lose
someone, and pain became a distraction he didn’t need. Explaining
to an outsider who he was and what he did wasn’t even an
option.

But every once in a while, he experienced an
ache of loneliness, the yearning to be normal, to form
relationships with others who weren’t monsters, to pursue college
instead of figuring out how to rein in mutinous vamps.

He paused at the railing and gazed at the
ocean, trying to block the human remorse in his heart and refocus
on his duty. Because that’s all he had become when he killed the
last Black God to take his place. He had become a creature bound by
duty whose personal interests were no longer important. There was
no place for emotions or doubt or mercy, not when such human
weaknesses stood in the way of defeating his enemies and were
interpreted as cowardice to the vamps he led. The civil war was a
greater threat than the White God, and one he felt personally
responsible for after how long it’d taken him to accept his
duty.

Jonny began walking again, irritated by the
sea of humanity he had once been a part of. He arrived to the
warehouse just as dusk overtook the sky. He could see as well in
the dark as he could in the day, though he saw in gray scale rather
than color. It was another unique gift for the creature charged
with leading nocturnal predators.

He entered the warehouse where the vamps had
been bringing their dinners. The faint scent of vamp and human
blood reached him, along with the scurrying of some small animal.
He walked around the area where the scent of blood lingered without
finding any sign the talisman he sought had been accidentally
knocked out of a vamp’s hand and forgotten.

I’ve had no fucking luck the past five
years.

The vamps and their food and attacker had
all left through the same door and taken the same path away from
the warehouse. He followed the footsteps and opened the door to
step into the narrow alley, scanning the area for the talisman. He
almost hoped a clumsy vamp had dropped it, even if such an
oversight was punishable for sheer stupidity.

The tool was nowhere in sight. Jonny
searched the area visually. He turned towards the boardwalk and
began walking. In the dying light of the sun, he caught a glint of
something tiny and metal.

He bent to pull the necklace from the
crevice where it had fallen.

Jonny lifted the necklace
with an
A
charm,
and his heart skipped a beat.
It’s not
possible.
He had seen it four years before
around the neck of the girl he thought of sometimes.

It was Ashley’s. Or at least, she had one
like it. A Natural, she was a ward of Xander’s – completely
untouchable. Jonny racked his brain to recall what he knew of her
Natural gift before realizing he had no idea what she and her
brother were capable of. In the time they spent together, he’d
never had the chance or motivation to test her to find out. She was
able to Travel, but such an ability was normally secondary to a
Natural.

She could be anything. Natural gifts were
hereditary, and he knew nothing about her parents, although Xander
had once told him their grandfather was a Watcher. Jonny hadn’t had
the need to understand what abilities a Watcher had, but it was
likely the reason Ashley’s guardian, Jessi, was invisible to even
gods.

It seemed at first too large of a
coincidence for him to find her necklace at a site where his vamps
had been attacked by a Natural. Xander and Jessi lived close to San
Diego. It wasn’t out of the question Ashley was nearby.

But a
fighter
? He remembered Ashley as a
sweet, innocent seventeen-year-old with a penchant for beading who
hadn’t known how to punch let alone defeat seasoned vamps. She had
been beautiful and delicate. Nothing about her was tough enough to
survive the brutal training necessary to become a
warrior.

Jonny stared at the necklace, willing it to
reveal its owner and disappointed when it didn’t.

It could be anyone’s even if it seemed too
coincidental to have stumbled upon it at this time and place. And
if it were Ashley’s, he had a huge problem named Xander standing
between him and the woman who might have the talisman hidden in the
bulky case of a cell phone.

He took out his phone to
text Charles.
After your op, we need to
track that phone.
He pushed send. A vamp
from a different era, Charles wasn’t yet comfortable with modern
technology. Jonny had found the Black God’s enterprise to be
woefully short of advancement in that area, and he’d been slowly
bringing in tech savvy vamps and new equipment to enable them to
work smarter.

After the rebellion, he’d GPS tagged every
cell phone issued to a vamp, though the computer that was supposed
to be monitoring them had been crushed in the rebellion. He’d been
waiting for it to be rebuilt.

“Coño!
I’m tired of living in the nineties,” he muttered and rose. He
gazed at the charm on the necklace for another long minute then
placed it in his pocket.

If Ashley were involved, his life was about
to get even more complicated. He returned to the boardwalk,
debating whether to approach Xander or wait until he had
confirmation either way.

Or … there was a third option.

His phone vibrated and he checked it to find
the text from Charles.

Computer online. Starting op. Radio
silence.

Jonny smiled, pleased for the first time in
too long at having a quick result to at least one of his issues. He
clicked the link Charles had sent and watched his phone install a
new app. It popped open to reveal a map of the country dotted with
the locations of all his vamps. One in San Diego was red.

“About time,” he said. He zoomed into the
red dot. His location popped up as a black dot. “So close.” He
frowned. A small part of him had hoped the phone was outside of San
Diego.

He began walking towards the area indicated.
Normally, he’d Travel there, but if Ashley was involved, he wasn’t
about to stumble into one of Xander’s wards by accident.

Senses alert, he walked to the train station
and rode through the city for nearly forty minutes before reaching
the University district. On a Friday night, the dorms, local bars
and hangouts, and surrounding apartment buildings were lit up and
loud. Music thumped from several different locations, and the
streets were crowded.

He walked among the college students,
straining to sense any Natural or ward before he reached it. A
couple of redheads caught his attention, and he watched them duck
into a bar. His stomach growled but he chose to continue, needing
to locate the talisman.

Reaching the apartment building where the
red dot originated, Jonny waited for a group of students to file
out of the door and slipped in before they could close it.

He had yet to trip any wards, but he didn’t
feel the presence of any Naturals, either. Puzzled and wary, he
followed the tracker chip to the fifth floor and down a wing
overlooking a back street rather than the busy strip in front of
the building.

No wards. No Naturals. It was possible the
vigilante had gone out for the night and left the phone in his
apartment without knowing its value. Charles seemed to think this
guy didn’t have a clue what he was doing, aside from beating up
vamps he crossed.

Jonny sensed no one inside, either. He
glanced both ways down the hall before Traveling inside.

The apartment was small and brightly lit.
Music played quietly, along with a television, and popcorn popped
in the microwave. The cell phone he had tracked was plugged into a
laptop with a lit screen on a coffee table in front of the
television. He frowned, uncertain why he couldn’t sense anyone when
everything indicated someone was here.

He crossed to the breakfast bar area, which
was littered with mail, chargers for electronics and a digital
picture frame.

Shit.
He studied one of the pictures taken several years before. In
it Ashley and her brother were grinning, their arms wrapped around
the blond Jessi, who beamed.

“What the hell are you doing here?”

Jonny turned. He had only sensed Brandon’s
presence a split second before the college student spoke. It dawned
on him why. Their cousin Jessi had the ability to move in stealth
mode, completely undetectable until she was within about a meter of
someone else. Brandon had to have inherited the gift as well.

But if Brandon’s gift was stealth mode, that
left Ashley as the fighter and Jonny … disbelieving.

“You can’t be here!” Brandon was tense, his
glare on Jonny.

“You stole something of mine. I want it
back, and I’ll be on my way.” Jonny raised his hands.

Brandon was staring at him. “How did you
find me?”

“The phone.”

Brandon glanced towards it then swore,
crossing to yank it free of the computer.

“I just want it back,” Jonny repeated.

“You came here for a phone?”

“Yep.”

“No other reason?”

Jonny understood the pointed look without
Brandon saying anything about his sister directly. His irritation
stirred. “Xander and Damian know you’re beating up my vamps?”

Brandon went rigid.

“I didn’t think so,” Jonny said and shook
his head. “Don’t be stupid, Brandon. Stop targeting my vamps.”

“Stop hurting innocent people and we
might.”

We.
Double shit. It was getting harder to deny the obvious. “It’s
what I do. No need for you to get involved.”

Brandon threw the phone at him.

Jonny caught it. “You get off with a warning
this time because of who you’re related to,” he said. “I’ll take
matters into my own hands next time.”

“Get out, Jonny.”

Jonny reached into his pocket and pulled
Ashley’s necklace free. “Tell your sister not to come near my vamps
again.” He set the necklace on the breakfast bar.

Without another word, Jonny Traveled out of
the apartment to the sidewalk outside. He was tenser than usual. He
pocketed the phone, relieved to have it back, and glanced up at the
building. He hoped his personal warning would scare the siblings
straight. If they were anyone else …

He shook his head. He’d eat one and feed the
other to his vamps. Guardians weren’t off limits like humans. As
for Naturals … he’d never had a reason to consider what to do with
them since most were either under the protection of Guardians to
start off with or he had no way to identify them with his destroyed
infrastructure. It seemed like an oversight not to have a policy
for interacting with Naturals.

At least he had some leverage if they hadn’t
told either the White God or their protector what they were doing.
If they failed to obey him, he could alert Xander first and then
act.

Jonny shoved his hands into his pockets and
began walking, waiting until he was out of sight of anyone else
before Traveling back to his home.

So Ashley was a Natural warrior, and her
brother was on stealth mode. As soon as he’d realized whose
apartment he was in, he’d experienced a thrill and hoped to see
Ashley, not her brother. The disappointment and relief flickering
through him were baffling. How was he eager to see a girl he hadn’t
set eyes on in over four years? One he’d last seen before the war
with the Others, and who he’d walked away from after she realized
he betrayed her?

There was no place for emotion or the past
in his world.

I’m exhausted. That’s
it,
he told himself. Nocturnal or not, he
still needed more sleep. It didn’t look like his life was about to
get any easier soon, though, and he had the talisman he needed. He
banished the thought of Ashley from his mind without being able to
completely suppress the interest his discovery created.

Ashley danced long and hard to the throbbing
techno in one of the local clubs. She always felt best when she was
working out, fighting or doing something else physical like dancing
for hours to the quick beat. Sweat dampened the back of her neck
from the activity and crowded club, and she grinned at her latest
partner. Guys and girls rotated in and out as her dance partners.
None were ever able to keep up with her for long, and she closed
her eyes, not caring who was present when she opened them.

She let the music sweep her away instead and
worked out the anxiety that often came with fighting vamps. There
were moments every time when she truly feared for her life and
others when she didn’t think anything in the world could touch her.
She’d been fighting vamps for a few months and was growing more
confident in her skills. But sometimes, like when she tried
something new such as facing down four vamps, she became a little
intimidated, a little uncertain about her training and
preparation.

At the four hour mark, she finally left the
dance floor and sidled up to the busy bar. She was a regular at the
club, and the bartender brought her a glass of ice water. She
squeezed through the crowded space to grab it.

“Thanks,” she panted with a smile and
shifted away.

“Buy you a drink?” someone asked from behind
her.

“No, thanks.” She didn’t bother turning.
Facing vamps was becoming second nature. Dealing with guys? She
still didn’t understand what held her back, aside from memories of
how she’d almost lost her family by trusting the wrong guy. She
trusted her ability to fight more than her judgment.