Damian's Oracle (3 page)

“No, ikir. I will be in your territory for
some time.”

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 continued. “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.

“Fuck,” Damian breathed. “The last time you
all got into a war, you nearly destroyed the universe.”

“Our war has again spread to yours,” the
Watcher continued. “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.”

“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, his other BFF
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.”

His 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. And he
didn’t like it.

“By your leave, ikir,” the Watcher said and
bowed his head again.

“Try not to screw up too much of my shit,” he
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.

* * *

She awoke stiff and cold on the bathroom
floor. Sunlight streaming through the blinds, making her head pound
harder.

“Oh god, Sofia!” Jake’s voice came from the
doorway. “I’ve been trying to call …”

His voice trailed off as he took in the pills
scattered all over the bathroom floor and her bloodied hands.

“You tried to kill yourself,” he
whispered.

“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!”

He paused, and she saw the confliction in his
gaze.

“We’re going to the hospital,” he decided,
grabbing her arm.

The visions started.
Jake cleaved in two
by a maniacal man with a sword. S
he 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,” she said, voice cracking. “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?”

“I couldn’t get past his secretary.”

She saw Toby’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.

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 7:15.”

She glanced at her watch. It was 9.

“I’m sorry, doc. I overslept.”

“It’s important Dr. Czerno sees you this
morning. Can you come in?”

“No, no, my eyes are too sensitive.”

“Why don’t we do an old-fashioned house call
and come to you?”

Surprised at his persistence, she remembered
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.”

His words hit her hard.

“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.”

She hesitated. 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.”

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,
knowing 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 door.

“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?”

“Yeah, that’s it.”

Jake was so quiet, she thought he left until
he spoke again.

“Sofia, will you come with me somewhere?”

If not for the painful sunlight, she’d have
looked up at the hushed note in his voice.

“No.”

“I promise, it’ll be worth your time.”

“Not during daylight.”

Her body was beginning to ache more, from her
battered hands to her bruised cheek from where she’d fallen after
fainting the night before. A deeper ache, as if she had the flu and
every muscle in her body were 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 twice a week 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
apartment?”

“I don’t know.”

“Are you going to get up?”

“No.”

“You’ve always been so fucking 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 down, grateful
as it chilled her parched throat. She soon felt relaxed and drowsy.
When her phone began to ring again, she stretched for it and found
she couldn’t move.

“Sorry, Sofi, but I gotta take you somewhere
safe,” Jake’s voice warbled.

White God’s Headquarters

“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 Damian’s
office.

“No. Talking to Dusty and Jule,” he answered
without turning. “Save me some cake.”

“Sure.”

The door closed softly, and he returned to
the instant messages popping up on his screen.

“Dusty, can you hear me?”

Dustin typed a
yes.

“What the fuck’s wrong with your mic?” Jule,
the commander of the eastern hemisphere, demanded with a laugh.

Don’t know. IT issues.

“At least it’s just IT,” Jule responded,
growing serious.

Damian pulled out a map, his gaze roving 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 a 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 two
.

“I think Dusty’s right,” he 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.”

Just like their supreme leader.

“What’d you do to him, D? He’s been cranky
all night.”

“Chill, Dusty, it’s not that serious,” he
answered.

An oracle????? Not serious? Are you fucking
insane?

“It’s not confirmed.”

“Wow. Why didn’t you tell him?” Jule scolded.
“In fact, why didn’t you tell me?”

“Dude, 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.”

“Back to my issue. 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. Fuck 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 you after the Quarterly with
some reinforcements. 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. 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.

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 you’re still not talking,” Jule
said.

“Nope.”

I’ll give her a call. Maybe she can come to
the Quarterly.

“Fuck 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.”

Amen.

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 much 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.

“Dusty, can you - “

A scream jarred him.

WTF?

“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 fuck is going on? And why are you
dressed like a sadistic teddy bear?” he demanded.

Sadistic what?

The Guardian pulled the head off the
costume.

“You need to see this, D.”

By his tone, something was more wrong than
the horrible costume.