Chapter 3
Miami condo,
White God’s Commander of the Western Hemisphere
We’ll meet soon, brother.
Dustin, the White God’s chief assassin and commander of the Western Hemisphere, awoke in a cold sweat with his heart racing. The clock blazed 3:30 in his otherwise dark condo. An hour of sleep was the longest he’d managed in over a week, and he felt more tired than when he lay down.
He’d dreamt many times before about his sister and his family, but she’d never talked to him directly. Her soulful blue gaze and gentle words gave him the creeps. She appeared as he remembered her the day of her murder: a ten year old with long blonde hair, striking blue eyes, and golden skin. Her words fueled the sense of dread he’d felt the past two weeks, since he’d lost contact with his brothers.
He sat as the dream faded and patted the necklace with the dangling sun-star symbol marking his demi-god status. It was a comforting combination of the symbols belonging to his adopted brothers and BFFs: the sun worn by Damian, the White God, and the star worn by Jule, the expelled immortal and Eastern Hemisphere’s commander.
His condo swayed in the harsh winds of the latest storm spawned from the massive tropical storm in the Gulf. Rain splattered hard against his windows, drawing his gaze to the windows.
We’ll meet soon, brother.
Dusty rose to pull on his gym clothes. He’d never thought twice of his mortality - he had none. Damian granted him immortality along with his other demi-god powers and the one authority no other immortal had: the ability to kill one of their own who got outta line or broke the divine codes. He’d been Damian’s most trusted executioner for thousands of years.
He’d also been anonymously voted least popular by a disgruntled Guardian on their online discussion boards, and he was about 99% sure his BFF Jule was leading the pack on that one as his latest attempt to win a bet with Damian.
We’ll meet soon, brother.
Yeah, creepy was the right word.
He rubbed his face and crossed to the bathroom. He’d lost another five pounds this month. He’d dropped twenty in the past six. He stepped off the scale, snagged a protein bar, and walked the twenty floors to the gym in the bottom of his condo building. He couldn’t remember when he’d last had a full five hours of his own, and he knew he wasn’t likely to get another break for awhile.
The moment he returned from the gym, his phone rang.
“Where, Toni?” he answered.
“Little Havana. I texted you the street address. Better hurry, boss. We gotta clean up before the cops get here.”
“On my way.”
A short time later, Dusty surveyed the blackened ruins of the church in the grainy light of dawn. The rain had quit for the day, though the tropical storm spinning around in the Gulf guaranteed another week or so of sporadic storms.
“There are fourteen-ish bodies towards the back of the church. The fire destroyed everything else,” Toni said.
“Third flash-n-dash this week.”
“TGIF, boss,” the Guardians’ Miami Station Chief, Antonio, said with cheerfulness out of place for the scene in front of them.
“If there’s nothing here linking this to otherworldly activity, we’re done here,” Dusty replied. “The city can clean it up. You get the DNA from the bodies?”
“Not really, no. They’re too crispy.”
He glanced at his long time Miami Station Chief, the handsome Hispanic man who looked as severe as he was lighthearted.
“We’ve got tire tracks,” one of the Guardians called, kneeling near the driveway.
“Looks like an SUV of some sort.”
“I found a cell phone!” another called as he scoured the gutters around the church.
“No battery.”
“Take it to HQ,” Toni directed.
Dusty looked around them, gaze settling on the only car on the streets that didn’t belong to him and wasn’t on blocks. It was a beat up Camaro parked half a block down. He sensed rather than saw that someone was in it, watching them.
“Toni, send your transporter to grab the driver in the Camaro down the street,” he said, returning his gaze to the charred building in front of him. “Send me a report when you’re done.”
“You want me to call you if we see another one of these?”
“Not unless there’s something different about it. I’m going to get a pulse check from the network to see what the fuck the vamps are doing.”
“We got info on a stash-house on Broad Street. I’m waiting for Jenn to confirm, and we’ll schedule to take it out tomorrow morning.”
“Good. Have fun killing things.”
“Ok, boss. Happy Friday.”
Dusty smiled faintly as Toni walked towards the back of the church, whistling. He blinked and used his power to transport himself to his study. Someone had been using his computer; he returned the mouse and computer screen to their appropriate angles before seating himself. The house was quiet, the way he preferred it. In all of thirty minutes, some sort of drama would emerge once the inhabitants awoke.
Come see me, he texted his spy chief.
He sat back and waited, counting down from ten.
“Hey Boss,” Jenn purred, emerging from the shadows.
One of the rare female Guardians, Jenn was tall and willowy with dark hair and green eyes, a studied air of seduction, and the ability to penetrate any group he sent her to. She didn’t try to hide her sex appeal and wore clothing tight enough to leave little to the imagination.
“Three,” he said.
“Still under five seconds,” she said with a sultry smile.
She pulled up a chair across from him and straddled it, her direct gaze settling on him.
“What can I do for you?” she purred.
He smiled to himself, enjoying the game they always played.
“Shall I make a list?” he returned.
“I’ll start at the top and work my way all the way down.”
“Fuck that. You’ll start all the way down.”
“For you, anything, any way you want it, anytime.”
“I love it when you say that.”
“You know what a girl likes. I don’t mind trying to make your day as good as you make mine. How bout now?”
“We got real work to do,” he replied.
She rested her chin on the back of the chair, waiting with a sexy pout.
“Don’t,” he warned. “You know you won’t win.”
Jenn laughed and sat back.
“Fine, boss. Work then play. Must be serious.”
“Our vamp friends have had three flash-n-dash events this week so far,” he started.
“Toni told me,” she said. “A total of about thirty bodies.”
“We haven’t seen this anywhere else.”
“Talon’s boys are more violent than most of them. These are essentially huge orgies and feasts for initiating newbies.”
“What do you have as far as sources in Talon’s org?”
“Not much,” Jenn admitted. “The Natural I planted there called this morning and said they were waiting to burn the place until something got there.”
“Something?”
“He didn’t know what it was but said it wasn’t a vamp and it wasn’t their dinner.”
Dusty was quiet, surprised. While violent, Talon wasn’t the smartest brute in the world. That he may have planned something for a reason other than to eat, fuck, or recruit was unusual.
“No word on what? Cell phone intercepts? Anything?”
“Not that I know of,” she replied. “He’s normally really loud and stupid about what he’s doing. We don’t usually have a problem tracking him, but this changed about two weeks ago. Either he got smart fast or someone tipped him off.”
“I’ll need whatever you can get me,” he said. “I have a feeling something else is going on.”
“So do I, boss,” she said pensively. “Dusty, if I didn’t think it was impossible, I’d say Talon’s gonna make a play for the Black God’s job.”
“Talon?”
“Something is just … I don’t know. Maybe it’s just a spy’s paranoia. Talon’s reckless, but he’s cunning and he’s suddenly playing very smart. We caught some of his vamps tracking Czerno’s vamps more than once, and we’ve caught them in firefights, too.”
He said nothing about the presence of one such Black God in Miami. The Black God, Czerno, had been wreaking havoc in Europe until a few days ago. He didn’t know if a two-bit thug like Talon rated the attention of the King of Darkness or if Talon was stupid enough to challenge an immortal so much more powerful. Maybe the Black God was in town for a bit of vengeance while the White God was across the ocean, or maybe he’d found out about Dusty’s wards, the mate and brother of the White God.
He didn’t know what was going on, but he felt as uneasy as his spy chief.
His gaze went to his watch.
“You sure you don’t have time?” Jenn asked too casually.
“I’ve got a meeting at eight.”
She leaned over the chair and kissed him, a long, slow kiss.
“That’s enough time for me,” she whispered.
Dusty rose in response, peeling off his shirt. Her eyes went to his body hungrily, and he gripped her belt, pulling her against him. He transported them to his condo on the beach for privacy. He rarely turned down the offer of no-strings-attached sex, especially when his partner was so good at it. In all his years, he’d not found anything as soothing to his nerves as a woman’s silky skin, heady scent, and warm body.