The Black God - Page 49/187

Because there would be a next time. He imagined she'd take a couple days to recover, perhaps with pressure from Brandon, who Jonny was determined to keep beneath his thumb. He'd paid another visit to her sibling and offered a trade off: Brandon helped him find rogue vamps in exchange for Jonny not fucking with either of them.

But Ashley had been too angry, too emotional to back down, and Jonny didn't think the deal was going to last very long.

"Jonny," Charles trotted after him. "We have another problem."

The words were becoming his mantra. "Lay it on me," he replied without turning.

"The rogue vamps are growing bolder. They massacred everyone at a church mass today, perhaps in revenge for you taking out their Monterey crew."

Jonny listened and trotted up the stairs to the second floor, mind working quickly. "Damian's going to get involved," he said at last.

"Unless we go to him first."

"I don't want his help!"

"We may not have a choice. If they keep drawing attention to themselves, Damian's coming after you. And we don't have the vamps we need for a war right now."

Jonny clamped his jaw closed. Charles was right. "What would you have me do? Set up another meeting with Damian, the Grey God, Originals and Xander?" He absolutely loathed the idea of publically admitting he couldn't handle his domain.

"No meeting. Just show up at Damian's. He'll respect your privacy if you ask him to."

"How do you know?"

"Because I spent enough time with his people to know."

Jonny paused mid-hallway and faced Charles. "I forget that sometimes." Charles had been traded to Damian to help the White God hunt Others as well as part of the hostage exchange the two made for Damian to release a Guardian to help train Jonny.

"The last thing you want is them coming after you," Charles advised.

Jonny considered. He hated the idea the more he thought about it. Damian would never admit he couldn't handle his own people, and the White and Grey Gods looked down on him already because he was relatively new compared to the ten-thousand-year-old immortals. They treated him like he was a kid. He had spent enough time working with them to fight Others to know what to expect and now, he wanted them out of his life and domain.

"No Damian," he said. "I'll ask Xander to run interference."

Charles said nothing. Jonny often suspected his advisor didn't approve of his choice of occasional mentor, but Charles wasn't about to speak out against the Original Vamp either.

"I'll go warn him now." Jonny Traveled to the beach where he met Xander. The ocean soothed some of his angst, and he waited in the quiet night for the huge vamp to appear.