"Jake!" Damian shouted as the Traveler disappeared. "Fuck!" He saw Jilian's blow cleave the Traveler apart the moment he materialized down the hall. Jake dropped silently. Damian charged Jilian, Czerno's longtime executioner. Jilian met Damian's sword with his own, barking orders to his vamps.
The screams stopped, and Damian's heart quickened. The period between when an Oracle could be bound and when she permanently died was brief. Jilian's men pounded down the hall. Damian gritted his teeth, unable to unleash the blow that could destroy them all in a blink without taking out Sofia as well.
"D!" Dusty called.
"Busy!" He whipped out the vamp-killing hand cannons and shot the first two of Jilian's men. Several rounds drove him back, and he ducked a blow aimed at his neck by Jilian.
"I'm here!" Dusty materialized beside him, his gun roaring in the narrow hallway as he mowed down Jilian's men.
Damian slashed through Jilian, and the vamp dropped. He hacked him apart until there was nothing but pulp.
"Laney, send in everything!" Dusty barked into his mic. "Now!"
Vamps jammed both directions of the hall, and Damian sensed Czerno making a beeline for the room behind the wall in front of them.
"Hold 'em, Dusty," Damian shouted and placed his hands on the wall.
"Got it," Dusty said, reloading before his hand cannons began roaring again.
The wall before him burst into dust, and Damian crawled through the opening, firing a full clip at Czerno's form at the other end. The mansion rocked as Dusty's first set of explosions went off. The ceiling began to crumble. A second explosion threw him across the room. Czerno disappeared as chunks of stone ceiling piled in front of the doorway.
Damian rose, sickened by the sight before him. Sofia lay on the cold steel table, her tears still wet but her eyes open and staring blankly. A tube ran from her neck to the vat of blood on the floor. What had started as a stream of blood had slowed to a few remaining drops. Fury filled him. A stone dropped from the ceiling into the vat, and warm blood splashed over him.
Dusty joined him, drawing a sharp breath at the sight.
"This place is about to come down," he warned. Damian launched forward, snatching the tube and whipping out a knife.
"Cut me," he ordered.
"You know what you're doing?"
"Think I just got me an Oracle," Damian said grimly. He felt Dusty's gaze on him before it went to the still woman.
"This is more permanent than marriage," Dusty said in a hushed tone.
Damian followed his gaze. He felt fear again, an emotion he hated. Every instinct in his body ached to feel Sofia alive. He didn't know if she'd understand-or forgive him-for what he was about to do to her. He didn't know if he understood what he was doing. But seeing her lifeless on the table made his soul wrench in a way that reminded him of how he'd felt when he found his brother's lifeless body thousands of years ago.