The Demon's Game (The Guardian Series Book 4)

by Rain Oxford

  “Then why haven’t you married him?”

  “For the same reason I didn’t marry you! I was never enough for you. You wanted kids with me, and I didn’t. You wanted adventure, and I didn’t. We would never have worked. All I ever wanted was to be free; I never wanted to be someone’s wife. All my life, I was someone’s girl, sister, daughter, mother… I just want to be me for a while. I don’t know what that is because nobody has ever let me figure it out.”

  She started crying and hung her head. This was not the moment for me to hug her, as she expected me to. Instead, I gave Nano an obvious glare until he took her in his arms.

  “I just don’t want to be alone,” she said.

  “Now, Nano, I think it’s your turn to explain to Vivian that you didn’t betray her.”

  He swallowed. “Nila tells me everything. When he told me that his father was back from the dead using demon magic, that he was out to kill Dylan, I had to do something. Dylan is one of the Guardians and if we don’t help each other, we are just servants to the gods. I spoke to Zer and found out from him that Janus was missing. That meant this realm was vulnerable. I tracked down some of the other void guardians and discovered there was an uprising against Dylan. I knew the best way to help Dylan was to do what I do best; get information. And the best way to get that information was directly from the source.”

  “But… you said…”

  “I knew Ghidorah was close. Ghidorah and I were in touch the entire time.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me?” Vivian asked.

  “Because you would have run straight for Dylan. I knew you loved him, but it wasn’t about jealousy.” He shot me a guilty look. “People around Dylan are going to die. Not everyone and not every day, but it happens. It happened with his father, with Sydney, and it’s going to get worse. People will die for him and because of him. It’s the consequence of being as powerful as he is. I’m not letting you be another victim.”

  “You don’t have the right to tell me who I can and cannot help.”

  “So you’re fine with it if I die trying to help Dylan?” he asked.

  She punched him hard in the shoulder. “Don’t you dare say that! If you die, I will drag you outa Hell and beat the shit out of you!” He pulled her tighter into his arms and I suspected it was to keep her from hitting him again.

  “I had to keep the information from Nila, too. By the time you found out, I was too deep undercover and exposing myself would mean the certain death of everyone close to me. I did get a lot of information. Nila’s father is not a demon exactly, more like Ronez at this point, and they’ve both been busy. In the spirit world, they have been spreading your name. Ronez has you as the defender of all and more powerful than the gods themselves. Demons and dead souls alike who listen to him think you are the greatest hero this universe has ever seen. Even the living talk about you; children want to do good things to be like you, while the sinful fear to sin because you could be watching.”

  “Damn, no wonder I’m having so much trouble. I’m just a lazy idiot who gets into more trouble than I should.”

  “If that were true, you wouldn’t have the following you do. At the same time, Nila’s father has something sinister up his sleeve. The man has been getting the demons riled up about you; particularly the Ancients. He says you are a trickster who has fooled the gods into protecting you. He says you have little power of your own, but you get more powerful beings to do your bidding. Also, he talks heavily of your pet demon.”

  “He isn’t a pet.”

  “He certainly looked like one to me.”

  “He came to me of his own free will to make a bargain. He has to protect my sons and Mordon to atone for dragging Mordon into the void and hunting Hell. In exchange, I don’t send him back to the void. As far as making people do my bidding… I can’t even get Shinobu to come when I call her. Besides, that isn’t the important information you have for me.”

  “No, it isn’t. Ilea and Nila’s father don’t have two different armies; they were leading the same army. More importantly, there is a third person leading the uprising, known as ‘the goddess.’ I know nothing else about her.”

  “I’ve heard of her.”

  “Is there another female god?” Vivian asked.

  “Not that we know of, but I trust Divina.”

  “And they call you something,” Nano continued. “I forgot what it was. I think it was in Enochian.”

  “If you remember, tell me. Any little thing can be important, especially if it has to do with the Enochian language. Now, I have a more important question. Why don’t you want Sammy?”

  “I love my son.”

  “I know you love him, otherwise I would have asked why you don’t love him. Instead, I asked why you don’t want him. Or is that why? You don’t want him because you love him. That makes sense if you were trying to do what’s best for him. On the other hand, I’m thirty-five whereas you’re over fifteen hundred, so why do you think you’re so bad for him?”

  “Drop it, Dylan.”

  “Oh, but you know me better than that. I never drop anything. I have to know. Mysteries are problems for me, even if they are personal problems or embarrassing… especially when they involve my son.”

  Vivian took Nano’s hand. “Nano had a mate before me. Back when the people of Dios lived above ground, he married his first love, who became pregnant.”

  “Vivian, please,” Nano whispered.

  She turned to him. “We left our son to him. He’s the one you should trust more than anyone else.”

  “Kiro doesn’t even know.”

  Vivian looked at me. “Azenoth and Zer told him that his son was going to be the Guardian of Kahún and that Nano needed to teach his son to be a good Guardian.”

  “One of the Guardians that Azenoth retired,” I said. It wasn’t a question so much as a horrified statement.

  “The first Guardian of Kahún, who Azenoth killed,” Nano corrected. “So please drop it.”

  There was a knock on the door and then Mordon stuck his head through. “Hey, I know it’s private council time, but there’s going to be a riot in about five minutes if the chef doesn’t get started on dinner.”

  “Well, by all means.”

  He opened the door and Ron squeezed passed him with Hail in tow. They darted straight into the kitchen and tried to be quiet.

  “We can finish this later,” Nano said. “Thank you for…”

  “Love Vivian as hard as you can and love her harder when she’s pissed at you. If you don’t, I’ll sic my dragon on you.”

  “Dylan, your next appointment is here.” “I will bite you,” he said privately.

  “Food poisoning,” I responded lovingly.

  Nano and Vivian left and Mordon let Ronez in. I hadn’t even realized he was keeping traffic control, but it made sense. Ronez looked exactly as I had seen him the last time he came back from the dead. Actually, it seemed the spirit realm was doing good for him… which was a very morbid thought.

  “I thought it would be forever before I had a chance to talk to you,” he said.

  “Sorry, my dragon is a horrible secretary on account of him being illiterate. I think he got your name mixed up with ‘Ronda’ or something.”

  “I am seriously going to eat you,” Mordon said.

  “Ronda Ballard, the fire-user from Malta?” Ronez asked. “I met her outside. Gorgeous.”

  “Leave her alone. I just found her husband who she had been separated from for more than a decade.”

  “Yeah, I met him, too. Shame they weren’t interested in a more modern arrangement. Do you know that when I found out your mother was pregnant, I started making plans? It was always my intention to raise you myself. I would have taught you magic, how to play guitar, how to catch women… I wanted to help you do your homework late at night and smack you when you said something stupid, like that four times three is---”

  “Four times three is seven, obviously,” I interrupted. He smacked me lightly on the back of
the head. “I know. Growing up, there wasn’t a day in my life I didn’t think about what it would be like to have a father. Between Mother and her boyfriends, I usually thought I was better off without one. And then there was Kiro.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “You have nothing to be sorry about. If anything, I get it now that the balance is inside Ron. You couldn’t stay because I wouldn’t have had a chance. I also know that’s why you gave up in the end. What I don’t understand is why you made a decoy of the book.”

  “Vretial came to me and asked me to do three things; to hide a sword, to create an enchanted chest, and to create the decoy book. He never told me why, only that I owed him a favor.”

  “Because he helped you create the time map. It sucks that we couldn’t have that life you planned, and we can never have that… but you can stay now. You’re like a demon, now, right? You can stay.”

  “No, he can’t,” Ron growled. “He isn’t a demon, he is the Guardian of Earth, and there cannot be two of you. You with a powerful demon is fine, but two Guardians of Earth is impossible.”

  My father sighed. “He’s right. Demons are very different from a dead soul. It’s more like I’m using demon magic to create a body that can sustain me for about a week. However, I can’t stay that long. My power was destroyed when I gave up the book, and I’m using the resources of the universe. That means I must obey the balance. For the same reason your nursery burst into flames when you were a baby, I would be compelled to kill you.”

  “I would never let you hurt Dylan,” Divina said, appearing beside me.

  “Can all gods overhear us?”

  “Yes, but most of them don’t bother. I’m just nosey.”

  “Or, you just couldn’t stand to spend a minute away from me,” Ronez said. “I bet you lie awake at night, missing me.”

  This was the Ronez I was used to. “Dad, stop flirting with Divina. Hell, you’re her father-in-law.”

  Ronez and Divina both scowled. “Okay, that’s gross,” Ronez said.

  * * *

  Dream meetings with Vretial were always a bit surreal, but I preferred it for some reason to actually being in the Land of the Iadnah.

  “You knew Sydney would die. You knew everything that would happen. You had it all planned from the very beginning. Hell, you set it all up in the first place,” I accused the god.

  Vretial frowned from his boulder. “My, I have been busy.” Then he shrugged. “I tried to prepare for whatever might happen. That was why I asked your father all those years ago to protect the sword.”

  “Why didn’t the sword kill me? The boys said Xul stabbed me in the chest, yet I have no wound.”

  “It is a magic sword, designed to kill the gods. Unfortunately, it wasn’t actually powerful enough to destroy Zero. It has no impact whatsoever on a mortal or even on flesh. In fact, you could stab a regular person with it and they wouldn’t even feel it.”

  “So you knew I wouldn’t die? Why the hell did you have to go and scare my kids then?!”

  “Oh, no, I really thought you would die. As it stands, I’m relieved you didn’t. You may not like me, you may even want me dead, but I’m not your enemy right now. Zero will return, and when that happens, the real war will begin.”

  “There is also the one they called ‘the goddess.’ Not to mention Nila’s father.”

  “As I said; you have enemies now. And I think you will find that life is chaos.”

  “I hate chaos. Everything you say is twisted around. You told my Ancient that Sydney would die, but you made it sound like she would live if he did as you commanded.”

  “Did I? That wasn’t very kind of me. I do hope he will forgive me. The dragoness had to die. She had the unique gift that all those around her would experience good fortune.”

  “So you did kill her.”

  “Good heavens, no. That would have been terribly cruel of me. I believe it was your son who caused her death, or rather, the balance in him. I did try to warn your demon that she would die. He needs to learn to listen better.”

  “You should have told me. I could have saved her.”

  “Yes, you could have, and you very nearly did. What stopped you?” he asked.

  Divina. Divina had stopped me from saving Mordon’s mate. Vretial knew this; he probably knew what would happen all along. I refused to let him cause me to distrust my wife. “Give me back my book now.”

  He pulled it from inside his jacket, as if it had been in an interior pocket. “Are you sure you don’t want me to hold onto it longer? You were real hesitant to hand the decoy book over to that Ancient.”

  “If I hadn’t been, he would have suspected something.” The book shot through the air into my hand and I slipped it into my bag. “Is that why you had Ronez make the book?”

  “I had to give him a lot of my power for him to make it. Exactly why I told him to make it, I didn’t know. Sometimes, having a decoy or distraction is a good idea, and sometimes you can’t make one in the middle of battle. Just remember that you owe me a favor now.”

  “You are my wife’s brother. By human culture, that makes us brother-in-laws. We’re practically family, and family helps each other out. How did you know Sydney was going to die?”

  He stood and approached me, not with anger or amusement. Oddly, he seemed resigned. “When a decision has been made that leads to a person’s death, when that person’s fate is sealed, I only see them as a walking corpse.” He stopped right in front of me and ran his fingers through my hair.

  “Am I dead?” I asked.

  * * *

  I was awoken by Divina’s thrashing first. It was really just a light kicking and tossing, but her whimpers grew louder. What do gods fear enough to have nightmares about? When I shook her shoulders gently to wake her, her whimpers only intensified. “Divina, wake up. Divina, you’re just dreaming. Divina!” I finally had to yell when she didn’t wake.

  She sat up with a shrill scream, a sound I never wanted to hear from my wife’s mouth again… only she didn’t stop. She kept screaming until Mordon opened the door. I put my arms around hers and she settled a little, but her screams turned into a harsh crying.

  “Is she okay?” Mordon asked.

  I shook my head. “I don’t think so.”

  “I made a mistake,” she cried breathlessly. I turned her face so I could see her and she clutched my arm weakly. “I made a terrible mistake.”

  The look in her eyes was so lost and horrified that I couldn’t see anymore. I pulled her closer and leaned her head against my chest.

  “I made a mistake.”

  She repeated that over and other so that my concern grew, even though her cries gradually lessened.

  Epilogue

  Xul

  A human’s concept of Hell is a place where sinners are tortured for their crimes. While I was interested in the lore, I couldn’t understand the viewpoint. The spirit world was more like the Greek underworld. The void, however, was something truly hellish.

  It has always been pretty standard information that the void was around before there was a universe, but time doesn’t exist in the void, so that is fairly pointless knowledge. While it was quite possible that I was created before any of the Iadnah, there was no way to know. What I did know was that I was older than any of the twelve remaining Iadnah, but so were all the Ancients

  The Iadnah are creatures of life. They first began in the small sector of universe that was the Land of the Iadnah. This was before there was a spirit world, since there were no dead. Death wasn’t even a concept then. However, the Iadnah were proud and greedy, thus it became a game to them to create more universes. I wasn’t sure if they actually created them, or it they just widened the tiny blips that were already there. To create a soul for them was child’s play, but to dispose of them, the spirit world was created. Eventually, their greed for power made their growing empire come crashing down around them until only one universe and thirteen Iadnah remained. It was no mystery that one of them killed
another, so then there were twelve.

  Since the Iadnah could only exist in the universe and we could only exist in the abyss, there was really no problem between us. There were fifteen of us that I could remember. Janus was the oldest, the most mysterious. The rest of us paired off according to our strength. Somehow, Ilea and I got mixed up with two others. I don’t remember how it happened exactly, but I was the most powerful male and Ilea was not the most powerful female. It didn’t matter so much since we were the only creatures of the void.

  Only we weren’t.

  While I only remembered the Ancients, I knew there had been something else. There was a species before us, far more powerful than us, but the memory had been purposely erased from my memory and the others’. There were obvious gaps in my memories up until the end of the Iadnah war.

  What we experienced was essentially how a human would feel trapped in a room with white walls, a white ceiling, a white floor, and no door, from birth to death. The only thing we had was each other. Although one may assume we didn’t suffer because we had no sense of time, that was not the case. Time did not exist for us, so there was no end to our sentence.

  We discovered how to spy on other universes and change the reality of the void before there were other demons. At first, we tried to recreate the universes we admired, yet we didn’t understand the concept of time, so we didn’t understand why we were so unsuccessful.

  We learned how to interact with the spirit world and that was how we discovered what we didn’t have. We adjusted, but not by creating our own image of the universe. No, what we had was the dead. We learned to take the nightmares of the dead souls into the void. It made the void a living Hell; however, it was a blessing to us. One thing we were very curious about was fighting and death. To experiment, we killed the two weakest Ancients. This was rather difficult, but we were eventually successful. We killed another one just for fun.

  Then there were more demons. They ran around like pests and we commanded them like pets. There were twelve gateways between the worlds, which were weak points between the void and universe. When we learned to escape the void through the twelve gates, the minor demons thought they could go wild. The gods closed the gates and Janus took on the responsibility of guarding the passage of demons to and from the universe.