by Ford, Lizzy
“I fucking hate housework,” the vamp said with a growl. “You make me do woman’s work, ikir.”
Damian looked the vamp over. It had taken Dusty two days to drill a routine and sense of discipline into the vamp, which was one day too many to the schedule-addicted assassin. Damian, however, was impressed he was able to do it at all. Vamps weren’t known for their smarts.
“So Charlie just roams free in the house?” he asked.
“Charles,” the vamp corrected him.
“He really doesn’t like being called Charlie,” Sofi echoed. “He’s a person of sorts, too, Damian.”
“I’m keeping him safe from the women, ikir,” Pierre, Sofi’s bodyguard, added. The large, blond Guardian was rarely more than five feet from his charge and sat in the corner.
“Am I the only sane one here? Who domesticates a vamp?” Damian demanded.
Pierre was unfazed by his raised voice and continued playing a game on his phone. The women paused in their activities to look at him. Gauging by the huge basket of yarn at her side, Sofi was crocheting an entire wardrobe for their unborn son. Bianca was cooking something that made him wonder if the vamp killed their lunch, too. The two women resumed their activities, unaffected by his outburst.
“Charles, this needs chopped,” Bianca said cheerfully, holding out an onion.
The vamp moved forward with a frown and hacked the onion apart with a vengeance that displayed his distaste.
“I can do other things, ikir,” the vamp said. “I can fight and hunt.”
“Damian, why not give him a shot at something?” Sofi asked. Her voice was quiet, and he couldn’t help wondering if she’d Seen something important enough to tolerate a vamp in her household.
“He’s really good with details,” Bianca volunteered. “Look.” She started to hand him what looked like an intricate carving in the side of an orange. The vamp snatched it and crushed it with his hand, glaring at her.
She rolled her eyes at him and returned to the cauldron of soup on the stove. The vamp stared at Damian.
“Fine. I’ll assign him something to do,” Damian said. “So you hunt and fight. Do you do anything else?”
“I’m an urban warfare tactics trainer specializing in tracking. I can track any animal, any kind of creature.”
“Interesting,” Damian said. “Can you track immortals?”
“I can.” There was no hesitation in the vamp’s response. Damian reconsidered the vamp before looking at Sofi, who ignored him.
“Can you track Watchers?” he asked.
“I’ve successfully tracked Others and trained vamps with the tracking gift to do so as well,” the vamp replied. “I’ve never tried Watchers.”
“You can track Others,” Damian repeated. “I can’t even track them.”
“You know vamps have gifts like Guardians,” Sofi said. “He’s a Hunter. If he hadn’t chosen to become a vamp, he’d be a very useful Guardian.”
Another thought crossed Damian’s mind, one that told him his little Oracle must’ve known who Jonny would’ve chosen to send him in exchange for Jenn. A vamp who could track Others was an invaluable treasure, especially if Charles could also track the sneaky little Watchers.
“You can train my Guardians to hunt Others?” he asked. “And figure out if you can hunt Watchers, too?”
“Yes, ikir. I’d do anything to get out of the fucking kitchen,” Charles replied. Bianca coughed to cover her laugh, and Pierre seconded the vamp with a quiet amen.
“Well, then, let’s get started,” Damian said and motioned for the vamp to follow as he strode towards the house’s back door. “You’ll work with Darian.”
“The Grey God?” Charles asked, trailing.
“Yes, the Grey God.”
“I can track, but I won’t fight an Other, if that madman chooses to fight one.”
“Darian’s not crazy enough to challenge an Other,” Damian said. Silently, he admitted Darian wouldn’t back down if an Other crossed his path.
Darian was where he expected to find him: in the gym. The Grey God rose from the weight bench as soon as he spotted Damian.
“Lookin’ good, brother,” Damian said with a smile. He couldn’t get over seeing his brother whenever he wanted, after so long without him. “This is Charlie … Charles. He has a useful gift. Apparently, he can track Others, and maybe even Watchers.”
“Good. I have a couple Others on my list of people to kill,” Darian said.
The vamp snorted. “I warned you, ikir.”
“I really am the only one with sense around here. No, Darian,” Damian said, perplexed. He’d gone away for a few months and returned to an entirely new world. “You’re not going to fight any of them. Just learn to track them while we have Charles here.”
Darian nodded and looked the vamp up and down.
“Play well together, or it’s back to the kitchen with you, Charles,” Damian warned.
The vamp growled low in his chest. Damian left the unpredictable Grey God with the seasoned vamp. The plan he’d begun to form was finally taking shape. If the Watchers and Others couldn’t hide from him, he was one step closer to finding a way to rid the planet of both. And Darian was the final key.
“Let’s try this again,” Yully’s father said. “You must focus on controlling your breathing and keep your eye on the target.”
Yully drew a deep breath, like she did when she was shooting clay pigeons. She focused on the target, a plate above the hearth. She’d never suspected the depths of her father’s strange power, and her first attempt to channel it was the reason the house was now lit with candles. She’d shorted out the electricity.
“Breathe in, take what you can, and hold it,” he instructed. “It’s the same thing you do to change an object into another, only normal objects have far less energy to control.”
She braced herself and pulled his power into her, struggling to control it while panic rose. It wanted to roam around her body instead of staying at her core, where she wanted it.
“Good,” her father said. “Don’t fight it. It can’t hurt you. You’re like a vase and the magic is the water.”
Yully forced herself to relax. Her grip on his hand tightened, while she loosened her grip on the foreign magic in her body.
“It feels so weird,” she said. “Hot and cold mixed together and almost like it’s raining inside me. I can’t describe how strange this is, Father.”
“Does it obey you?”
She concentrated hard, her eyes on the plate across the parlor. Instead of answering, she raised her arm and steadied her breath, as if she were holding a handgun. She willed the magic to hit its target. Lightning streaked from her fingertips, and she felt the magic sucked from her. It flew across the parlor, and the plate exploded.
“Very, very good,” he said, an odd glow in his eyes as he gazed at the place where the plate had been.
“I understand what I’m doing, but I don’t understand why.” She chose her words carefully. “Of what use is this type of talent?”
“There are many things I’m forbidden from telling you.” Her father released her hand and gazed at her for a long moment. “The world is becoming a more dangerous place for you, and I’d hoped we could wait until the winter solstice to perform the rite. However, the Guardians are growing more aggressive, and they now know where you are. We have one chance to save humanity.”
He was lying. She felt it. Yully cleared her mind to keep him from seeing that thought and nodded.
“You are like an empty vessel. You can be filled with water from any source. You can be filled with water from multiple sources. The same skill you’ve learned this morning, you can use against any Guardian or a whole group of Guardians. Let’s try this,” he said. “Stand before me.”
Intrigued by his words, she obeyed and stood before him.
“Close your eyes. I want you to sense my magic without touch.”
Yully’s eyes closed, and she focused hard on feeling something other th
an Jule, whose presence still lingered in her body. The harder she concentrated, the louder Jule’s heartbeat grew, as if their bodies were pressed together again.
“No, Father,” she said with some frustration.
Her father touched her arm, and fire tore through her. She gasped.
“That should unlock the rest of your gift,” he explained. “I’d hoped not to have to do this, but I can’t wait for you to figure it out.”
Jule’s brand on her soul was even more intense, enough so that she physically ached for him. Muddling through the sensations, she sensed her father’s magic. It was like standing in front of a bonfire.
“I feel you,” she breathed.
“Good. Pull the magic into you. This time, don’t blow up one of my antiques.”
There was no resistance this time as she drew his magic into her, gathered it, and focused it. She sent a chair sailing across the room.
“I always knew you were the one,” her father said, showing excitement for the first time since she could remember. “Come with me. One more thing, and I’ll let you rest. We only have a couple of days until the autumn equinox.”
His power moved through her like a wind in a forest. Everything in the room radiated some sort of subtle energy, and she waded through the energies, marveling and confused by them. Yully followed him out into the cold, rainy afternoon. He didn’t pause for their coats, so she bypassed the cloak room and crossed her arms as she exited the warm house.
The energies of the things in the house were replaced by new energies coming from the ground. They were faded and distant, and she looked down as she followed her father. He paused in the middle of the lawn that stretched between the house and the massive garage.
“Can you feel them?” he asked, facing her.
Shivering, she nodded, puzzled. It was as if small objects had been buried in the ground, and their weak magic was muffled.
“Is this a test, Father?” she asked, anxious to get out of the cold rain. “Did you bury things out here to see if I could feel them?”
“Yes,” he replied. “And you do. Can you draw the energy into you?”
She walked in a circle until she found the strongest of the energy patterns in the vicinity and paused above it. The magic crept up through her shoes and into her legs, warming her body as it went.
“I can, Papa,” she said.
“Try more than one. They’re scattered all across our lawns.”
She closed her eyes and concentrated again. She sensed Jule, her father, and hundreds-- no, thousands!-- of tiny signatures surrounding them. The energy came when she opened herself. Yully struggled to control the energies into her body, still leery of the invaders.
“You’re glowing,” her father said in a hushed tone. “I’ve been waiting for you for so long, Yully.”
She opened her eyes and looked down. She didn’t seem to glow to her own eyes, though she suddenly realized the rain no longer fell on her. Holding out her arm, she was fascinated to see the rain arc to avoid it.
“This was all I needed to know,” her father said. “Now, into the house, before you fall ill.”
He strode to the house, and she trailed, fascinated by the sensation of stepping over the energy sources. She released the energies, and they returned to their sources.
“How long did it take you to bury all these things?” she asked.
“Ten years or so,” he replied.
“So you just randomly took things from the house and buried them?” She couldn’t help her smile. “I can’t see you in the rain digging a hole for a toaster.”
“My dear, these aren’t toasters,” he said and echoed her chuckle. “They’re Guardians and guardsmen who would’ve seen you dead. I didn’t send their souls to the immortal realm, because I’d hoped you’d be standing here one day, able to drain the magic from them.”
She froze, the warmth of the magic leaving her as fear replaced it.
“Father, there are thousands,” she said, looking around her. She tried to assess how many there might be. “Tens of thousands.”
“I guess I’d forgotten how many there were. The more the better. We’ll need all their magics on the autumn equinox.” He disappeared into the house, and she stayed where she was, horrified.
Guardians. He’d killed and buried Jule’s kind. Jule, whose soul had somehow lingered in her body when she’d touched him, and who had become the only man she’d ever felt safe around. Even her father’s magic was gone when she expelled it.
… you seem to think a Guardian of humanity is your enemy, Darian had said.
Her replacement cell phone rang, jarring her. She answered it with numb fingers.
“Hey,” Jule said.
“Hey,” she answered.
“I hear it in your voice. What’s wrong?”
“I can’t talk about it,” she replied in a tight voice. “What do you want?”
“We’re having a wake for Sean tomorrow. I thought you’d like to say goodbye.”
Yully squeezed her eyes closed, relieved the bartender wasn’t buried in her backyard with the others.
“I don’t think my father would approve of me seeing you,” she managed. “I mean, of me going.”
“Sean would probably appreciate it if you came. His death wasn’t a pleasant one.”
She didn’t want to imagine what her father was capable of. Her gaze went to the lawn around her. She owed it to the dead to attend one Guardian’s wake.
“I’ll do my best,” she said at last.
“Noon tomorrow, on the cliff opposite the cottage.”
Yully hung up. She wanted to scream, cry, or flee. The same part of her that recoiled at draining dead men’s magic also understood one truth: she was no match for her father, if he decided to bury her with them.
With a deep breath, Yully left the graveyard and returned to the manor, determined to find a way to leave for Sean’s wake.
Chapter Six
Jenn snapped awake and sat, reaching for the gun under her pillow. The walls of the underground facility were trembling from a shockwave of power that made her Guardian senses hum with danger. She changed quickly out of her sleepwear and loaded her body down with weapons then drew a knife and her gun.
She left the room assigned her by Jonny, two doors down from his in his private wing. His guards lay dead in the hallway before his door, and she leapt over their bodies, shoving the door to his apartments open.
“Jonny?” she called. “Are you here?” A quick exploration of his apartments showed two more dead vamps but no Black God.
Jenn trotted through the halls, hopping over dead vamps as she went. No other sounds stirred but that of her boots over concrete. None of the vamps she’d seen yet were alive. The shockwaves faded, and she stood in the middle of an intersection, stretching out with her Guardian senses to find some kind of life.
“C’mon, Jonny, be alive,” she whispered.
A faint pulse of life came from the direction of the gym. Jenn ran through the halls, certain no vamp was about to get in her way when all of them so far were dead. She pushed open the door to the gym. Emergency lighting glowed along the walls, and the strange silhouettes of workout machines made her pause and wait for her night vision to filter out machine from potential attacker.
Nothing was alive in here, either. Alarmed, she picked her way through the rows of machines towards the door leading to the sparring mats. The lights were on in here, and Jonny’s form lay in the center of about a hundred dead vamps.
“Jonny!” she exclaimed, rushing forward. She dropped to her knees beside him and pushed him onto his back. “Jonny!”
The only thing she could’ve imagined happening was an ambush. Jonny’s body was bloodied and beaten, though his pulse was strong. Jenn checked his eyes and lowered her ear to his mouth to make sure he was breathing.
“Fancy seeing you alive.”
She whipped around, weapon pointed at Xander as he appeared through the doorway. His gaze took in the dead
vamps. Jenn had wanted to shoot him since meeting him, and she opened fire. Xander held up a hand, catching the bullets and then tossing them.
Her arm dropped.
“You’ll have to use your bare hands,” he said, looking her over. “No human weapon can hurt me.”
“Why did you do this?” she demanded. She holstered the gun and drew a knife. “You can’t kill him.”
“I can’t claim this massacre. But I can claim credit for saving you from ending up like the rest of them.”
“Jenn …” Jonny’s voice was weak. She stepped back over his body, unwilling to lower her guard against the large vamp whose gaze was on her.
“Jonny, hon, what happened?” she asked.
“Help me up.” He held out his hand. She pulled him to his feet.
“Stay behind me, Jonny,” she directed him. “I’ll take care of this.”
“No, no, Jenn. I did this,” Jonny said. He wobbled on his feet and shook his head. “They ambushed me. I was trying to … I don’t know what happened.”
“You killed every vamp in the facility,” she told him.
“Really?”
“Except for Xander here, who seems immune to just about everything.”
“I’m just that tough,” Xander said. Jonny looked at the massive vamp, who made no move to close the distance between them.
“He’s just really tough,” Jonny said. “You survived, too, Jenn.”
“The Black God saved those who were loyal to him,” Xander supplied.
“That makes sense,” Jonny said.
“No, it doesn’t,” Jenn countered, watching Xander manipulate the boy-god without knowing how he did it.
“Know your place, Guardian,” Xander warned in a lower voice.
“I’m ready when you are, vamp.”
“Enough,” Jonny snapped, dabbing at the blood on his face. “All I know is that I wanted them to stop beating me. Xander’s right, Jenn. You two are the only people I trust. I’m sick of living underground anyway.”
“Safer underground,” Jenn and Xander said simultaneously.
“I don’t care. Xander, find me somewhere safe above ground. Jenn, help me to my room. I need to rest.”