The words were the first sign of something very, very wrong. Damian’s unease grew.
“There is a disturbance in the uh, basketball game, as you call it,” the Watcher said. “One of the teams is cheating.”
“Czerno. How bad is it?”
“Bad enough to change the final score.”
Damian mulled his words, waiting for more.
“There are Watchers who have left the crowd for Czerno’s team. They’re coaching him,” the Watcher said softly.
“Damn,” Damian breathed. “The last time y’all fought, you nearly destroyed the universe.”
“Our war has again spread to yours,” the Watcher acknowledged. “I am bound by the oath of non-interference I took at the Schism. I, too, can only … coach, though I will choose when and where.”
“So I shouldn’t be surprised to see you in my territory, and I shouldn’t expect shit from you,” Damian surmised.
“Yes, ikir.”
“How long will you be coaching in my territory?”
“It may be awhile by earth standards. Those coaching Czerno are shifting the future daily.”
Damian hadn’t expected his day to be so eventful. If the Watchers were once again bringing their battle to earth, it meant the Original Beings imprisoned by the Schism were stirring up old divisions again. He was too young to know much about those beings or much about the Watchers. Jule, the regional commander for the eastern hemisphere and the oldest of the three of them by far, had come from the same world as the Watchers but refused to talk about it.
“That is all I will say, ikir, except to remind you that the White and Black Gods cannot kill one another directly. To do so would release the Original Beings, and then things would really be bad.”
Damian’s jaw clenched. He didn’t often feel helpless, not when he held the powers of a god among humans. But Watchers played on a different level. He was restricted to the physical world by the Schism despite his god-powers. By and large, the Watchers did whatever the hell they wanted. That this one had come to him with a warning was the most he could expect.
“By your leave, ikir,” the Watcher said and bowed his head again.
“Try not to screw up too much of my shit,” Damian returned.
The Watcher nodded and disappeared in a wink of light.
First a possible Oracle, then a Watcher. He had a feeling the war was just starting to get interesting. Damian crossed to his window and gazed out at the setting sun. Chances were, things were about to get ugly.
*
The next morning, Sofia awoke stiff and cold on the bathroom floor. Her apartment was cold, and sunlight streamed through the blinds, making her head pound harder.
“Oh god, Sofia!” Jake’s voice came from the doorway of the bathroom. “I’ve been trying to call …” His voice trailed off as he took in her bloodied hands and the pills scattered all over the bathroom floor. “You tried to kill yourself!”
“No, Jake,” she mumbled and pushed herself up. She sat on her knees for a long moment. Jake reached for her, and she recoiled. “Don’t touch me!”
“I’ve gotta get you to the hospital!” he said, grabbing her arm.
The visions started. Jake cleaved in two by a maniacal man with a sword. She shoved him away, landing hard on her backside while he careened into the bathroom wall.
“No, Jake. Leave me be!” She pulled her knees to her chest and wrapped her arms around them, hiding her face from the light. She shivered from cold and pain. He brought her a blanket and draped it over her. “Jake, something is really wrong with me.”
“No, really?” he retorted. “Did you call Dr. Bylun or not?”
“He didn’t want to talk to me.”
“Even when you told him your issues?” he asked, disappointed.
“I couldn’t get past his secretary.” She saw Cody’s broken body again in her mind and pushed it away. Every vision she’d had, even when Jake touched her, had been of death.
“That’s strange. He should’ve called you.”
Her phone rang, and she saw Dr. Mallard’s number flash on the screen.
“Hi Linda,” she murmured.
“Sofia, this is Dr. Mallard. We were expecting you at seven-fifteen.”
She glanced at her watch. It was nine. “I’m sorry, doc. I overslept.”
“It’s important Dr. Czerno sees you this morning. Can you come in?” he asked.
“No, no, my eyes are too sensitive.”
“Why don’t we do an old-fashioned house call and come to you?”
“Well …” She hesitated, surprised at his persistence. She could see a shredded couch cushion and broken glass in the hallway outside the bathroom door and recalled the shape her apartment was in. “Doc, I’ll come in tomorrow. I’m not having a good morning.”
“Hon, this is important. Dr. Czerno believes you’ll begin to have more symptoms soon, ones that might indicate the disease is accelerating.”
“Symptoms, like what?”
“Hallucinations. Paranoia. Sense of doom.”
“Doc, I…” She couldn’t bring herself to tell him about the visions.
“Here, let me put you on with Dr. Czerno.” There was the sound of a phone being shuffled from one person to another, then a flat, deep male voice.
“Sofia, this is Dr. Czerno. It’s imperative you see me at the earliest opportunity.”
“Doc, what’s wrong with me?” she asked.
“I can explain in detail in person, but it’s important I see you now.” There was something about his tone—flat and free of human warmth like the talking computer her blind coworker used—that made her uneasy.
“I’ll be in when I can, doc,” she murmured. “Can you tell me what other symptoms I might have?”
“Have you experienced any of the symptoms Dr. Mallard described?”
“Yes.”
“And more?”
“Yes.”
“Tell me about them,” he ordered.
No. Her instincts were restless, and every fiber in her body warned her not to respond.
“I’ll come see you right away,” she said, suspecting this alone would pacify him.
“Very good. I will be here. How far out are you?”
“About an hour.”
“I will see you soon. And Sofia, I don’t appreciate being stood up.” There was a warning note in his voice that made her more uncomfortable. She hung up. Her last hope for understanding what was wrong with her was someone she innately knew she didn’t want to meet.
“Who was that? Dr. Bylun?” Jake asked hopefully, reappearing in the bathroom doorway.
“No. Dr. Mallard. He flew in a specialist,” she responded, pulling the blanket over her head to shield her further from the sunlight. “I don’t think I like him.”
“I thought Dr. Mallard was the only doctor you hadn’t fired yet.”
“Not him. The specialist. He sounds like he’s from Russia. His name is Dr. Cicero. Or Zirno. Or something.”
“Czerno?” Jake asked in a hushed voice.
“Yeah, that’s it. You heard of him?”
Jake was so quiet, she thought he left until he spoke again.
“Sofia, will you come with me somewhere?”
“Not during daylight.” If not for the painful sunlight, she would’ve looked up at the hushed note in his voice. Her body was beginning to ache more, from her battered hands to her bruised cheek from when she’d fallen after fainting the night before. A deeper ache, as if she had the flu and every muscle in her body was on fire, was made worse by sleeping on the cold floor. She was in pain she didn’t understand. A tear trickled down her cheek.
She’d never been moody or wimpy or weak! In high school and college, she played co-ed soccer and basketball. Since leaving college, she’d stayed in shape through the local gym, where she lifted weights and forced herself onto a cardio machine twice a week. She wasn’t in tip-top shape, but she wasn’t weak!
“What the hell happened to your apar
tment?”
“I don’t know.”
“Are you going to get up?”
“No.”
“You’ve always been so damn stubborn. I’m trying to help you!”
She hurt too much to move. If she were perfectly still, she could deal with the pain.
“You want something to drink?”
Her head ached too much to respond. He returned a few minutes later and rustled her blanket, setting a cup beside her.
She drank the cool fruit punch, grateful as it chilled her parched throat. She soon felt relaxed and drowsy. When her phone rang again, she stretched for it and found she couldn’t move.
“Sorry, Sofi, but I’m taking you somewhere safe,” Jake’s voice warbled. “You gotta trust me.”
*
Jake watched her slump again and rubbed his mouth nervously. He snatched her phone as he squatted beside her and tossed it in the sink above their heads, stretching to turn on the water. He wasn’t sure how well Czerno was tracking her, but the Black God’s men had grown daring enough to tear apart her apartment. It wouldn’t be long before they came for her.
He lifted her and carried her to her bedroom, finding a spot on the bed that had avoided being shredded or covered with junk from her dressers. He quickly changed her out of her clothes and into one of his own long T-shirts, fearing her clothing would be bugged. He dialed Laney as he moved around her room.
“Yeah,” Laney’s gruff voice came over the Bluetooth.
“I’m bringing in a package.”
“The one D’s looking for?”
“Yeah.”
“You heard him—ship it to Tucson,” Laney instructed him. “She willing to go?”
Jake looked over at her still body, feeling somewhat guilty. Normally, Guardians were supposed to ease the transition of Naturals into their organization. However, he didn’t have time to convince someone as stubborn as Sofi to do anything, and Czerno wouldn’t wait for her to decide to go with Jake.
“More or less,” he answered.
“Don’t tell me. I don’t wanna know,” Laney said. “Take her there. Han knows you’re coming.”
“Thanks, boss,” Jake said. “She’s uh, a little bit asleep. Can you just let him know she’s not really in any shape to meet D yet?”
“Yeah, sure,” Laney said with a smoky chuckle. “Get outta here, kid.”
“We’re gone,” Jake said with a grunt as he lifted her again. Laney hung up. Jake drew a deep breath, closed his eyes, and disappeared.
*
White God’s Headquarters
Damian sat in his office before the computer, glancing between the instant messaging boxes popping up on one computer screen and the geospatial depiction of the past hundred years’ worth of battles between his Guardians and the Black God’s vamps on another screen.
“D, you coming down for the festivities? It’s pretty interesting. They’re acting out some bizarre kid’s story for the cancer kids,” Han said, ducking his head into the office.
“No. Talking to Dusty and Jule,” he answered without turning. “Save me some cake.”
“Sure.”
“The girl still sleeping?”
“She’ll be out for a while. Jake gave her enough that she should sleep for another day or so,” Han answered.
“All right.” Damian returned his interest to the displays, and Han closed the door softly. Dusty, can you hear me?”
Dustin typed yes.
“What’s wrong with your mic?” Jule, the regional commander of the eastern hemisphere, demanded with a laugh.
Don’t know. IT issues.
“At least it’s just IT,” Jule responded, growing serious. At the pause, Damian knew they were all looking at the geospatial depiction. His gaze roved over Jule’s European front. It was slowly being decimated and fragmented by Czerno’s blood-sucking vamps.
“You’ve got a rat,” he said, reviewing the past hundred years of battles depicted on the map. To humans, it would look like the natural give and take of a long battle. To the three of them, the drastic changes that occurred over such a short time span after thousands of years of no change were a warning sign.
Or more than one, Dusty typed.
“I think Dusty’s right,” Damian agreed. “You’ve got more than one rat to worry about.”
“I have Antoine under surveillance. I have no leads on anyone else,” Jule replied. “Thanks to Antoine, my spy network is shit right now. I’m rebuilding as fast as I can, but it ain’t easy finding new Guardians, let alone those who make good agents.”
“Discretion isn’t a natural trait to Guardians,” Damian said.
Just like their supreme leader, typed Dusty.
“What’d you do to him, D?” Jule asked. “He’s been cranky all night.”
“Chill, Dusty, it’s not that serious,” Damian answered.
An Oracle????? Not serious? Are you freaking insane? Dusty ended his message with a string of angry emoticons. Damian could feel his ire through the screen.
“It’s not confirmed.”
“Wow. Why didn’t you tell him?” Jule scolded. “In fact, why didn’t you tell me?”
“I just found out!” Damian snapped. “One of Dusty’s newbies called me. If one of our guys calls, I’ll go. They usually need something—they don’t call just to chat. When someone gives me some more definitive info on her, I’ll tell you.”
“Anyway, back to my concern,” Jule said. Damian knew if they had video chat, he’d see Jule rolling his eyes. “I’m out of ideas for dealing with my traitor issue, unless Dusty can send a few spies my way.”
I’m short, but I’ll send you a couple on loan. Want me to talk to Antoine?
“Cool, bro, thanks. Heck no on talking to Antoine. I need him alive and preferably in one piece, Dusty, unlike the last time I sent someone to talk to you.”
“I’ll come to Europe after the Quarterly with some reinforcements,” Damian offered. “We may need to make a couple of less-than-discreet strikes at Czerno’s strongholds to push him back and give us some time. Can you hold things down for two weeks?”
“I’ll do my damndest,” Jule replied. “Hey—is it just me or is recruiting getting harder and harder?”
Definitely.
“Yeah. I think our traitors have some influence on that, too. I’m getting reports from the recruitment team that a lot of their newly flagged Guardians are getting whacked as soon as they make the list,” Damian said.
Ask Claire what’s going on, Dusty typed with a smiley face.
Damian grimaced, recalling the last time he’d seen the beautiful woman, his slain brother’s wife. They never got any work accomplished when she was with him. They’d had a falling out a few hundred years before and hadn’t spoken since. He wanted to keep it that way. Sleeping with her made him feel … guilty, like he was betraying his brother’s memory. Yet, she was all that remained of his brother, and he cherished the connection. He preferred to know she was alive and well—and somewhere else.
“I’ll assume by your silence you’re still not talking,” Jule said.
“Nope.”
I’ll give her a call. Maybe she can come to the Quarterly.
“Screw you, Dusty,” Damian said acidly.
“Damn women,” Jule said. “I don’t know why they say you can’t live without them. I’m doing quite well.”
Damian snorted, gaze lingering on the map. Something was really wrong in Europe, and he needed to figure out what, before the European front was overrun by vamps. His thoughts returned to the Watcher, and he wondered just how many of his problems were caused by traitors influenced somehow by the beings coaching Czerno. With any luck, his Watcher wouldn’t fail him.
His phone rang. He glanced at the number and let it go to voicemail, not recognizing it.
“I’ve got two rotating to Tucson,” Jule said. “They’re en route. I want Han, though, D. You promised.”
“I know, I know. He’s sick of it here anyway.”
A crash came from the hallway. By the sound of it, it was one of his favorite, priceless, Ming vases. With his luck, the kids were loose in the house. Irritated by the mention of Claire and the idea of his collectibles being destroyed, he snatched his phone to call for Han.
“Dusty, can you—”
A scream jarred him.
WTF? Dusty typed.
“What he said,” Jule echoed. “Everything—”
A second scream. Damian rose. His door flew open to reveal a huge, furry monster with fangs.
“What the heck is going on? And why are you dressed like a sadistic teddy bear?” Damian demanded.
“You need to see this, D.” The Guardian’s muffled voice grew louder as he pulled the head off the costume. By his tone, something was more wrong than the horrible costume.
“Guys, we’ll talk later. D out,” he said into the mic before tossing it on the desk. “This better be good.”
Find Damian’s Oracle Online
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*
Linda Welch
Never Too Late
I’m going to tell you something I don’t think you know.
I haven’t been a “chick” for many a year. I’m a couple of months shy of 61. I have been married to the same man for 39 years. We have two sons and four grandchildren. And you thought I was a tall, slim young thing, didn’t you. I am what is called a late bloomer and I’m writing this for other old biddies who had a dream and let it pass them by, or think they are too busy, or it’s too late to fulfill their dream. I don’t mean just writing, but any dreamed-of achievement you hide in your heart.
I was born in a country cottage in England. My father was a restless man, so we often moved and never had much money. I remember days when only Dad had meat on his plate at dinner, but we never went hungry. We had vegetables and fruit from the garden, eggs from the chickens. Times were hard, but we children never knew that. We were loved. When Mum and Dad met during World War II, Mum was a privately educated “well-bred” lady. I doubt I will ever meet anyone as smart as my mother. At 88 years, she is still as sharp as a tack. Dad was a countryman to the bone. He had many artistic talents he didn’t pursue until later in life. When he did, he excelled at them. I like to think some of their intelligence and talent rubbed off on me.
Indie Chicks: 25 Women 25 Personal Stories Page 11
