Chapter 8 Dastian
Dastian
Ireappear on the roof of the old pub, the slate slick with rain beneath my boots as I take a seat, my legs dangling over the side. The world shimmers back into focus around me, the transition like plunging into cold water.
She’s even better up close, with her righteous fury and sharp edges. Her energy is a delicious, chaotic hum under my skin. Raw power, barely contained by that disciplined exterior. She has no idea she’s the epicentre of the storm that’s about to break over this sleepy little town.
From up here, I can see Nyssa striding away, getting soaked to the bone. I haven’t missed this weather. Much like everything else in the Pantheon realm, the climate just is. It’s there. No change, no weather systems, only a constant, boring cycle of nothing.
Nyssa disappears from sight, and I narrow my eyes. I should follow her, but she will be expecting that. If I don’t follow her, it will catch her off guard more. Always be unpredictable. That’s where the real chaos lies.
“Dastian.”
Dreven’s sombre voice fills the air around me. I don’t bother looking up.
“Couldn’t stay away?” I ask, still watching the street where she vanished. “Afraid I’d steal your new favourite toy?”
The shadows beside me coalesce, darkening until they form his familiar, grim silhouette. The rain doesn’t touch him either, but on him, it looks less like a neat trick and more like the world is too afraid to. “She is not a toy, and you will not interfere.”
“Interfere?” I finally turn my head, giving him a wide, innocent grin. “I was just having a chat. Making friends. The gods only know how fucking bored I’ve been these last few centuries. You, on the other hand, lurk in her garden like a common creep. Who’s the one interfering?”
His silver eyes are chips of ice. “I was assessing a threat.”
“Right. A threat you seem to find utterly fascinating.” I chuckle, leaning back on my hands. “Don’t worry, your secret’s safe with me. I won’t tell Voren you’ve got a crush. He’d never let you hear the end of it.”
A muscle jumps in his jaw. “This is not a game.”
“No, it’s not,” I say, dropping the playful tone. “It’s a shitstorm waiting to happen.”
“What did you tell her?”
“Nothing, not for lack of trying. She is as obtuse as you.”
“He’s telling the truth,” Voren says, appearing on my other side like a sly fox. “She really doesn’t like him.”
His lazy grin is annoying as fuck. I ignore it and him. “I told her what she needed to hear: she can’t do this alone.”
“And you offered your services, I presume?” Voren drawls, looking out over the rain-swept rooftops with an air of profound boredom. “Gallant of you.”
“Of course. I’m a helpful kind of god.” My gaze drifts back to where Nyssa’s cottage sits. “She thinks she can trust her rules and her Order. But they have no idea what’s slithering in the dark. When she finally realises that, she will remember our conversation.”
“So that’s it?” Dreven asks. “You’re going to leave her to come to her own conclusions.”
“Yes. Happy now?”
He grimaces at me, but I know he is satisfied that I won’t go pestering her.
As much as I’d love it, hanging around waiting for the slayer to get her shit together is time wasted in this realm that has been thrown into jeopardy by a madman and the impossible way he broke the veil between realms. Nyssa will dig her heels in and refuse help if we keep showing up with warnings and offers she doesn’t want right now.
Our time is better served trying to track down the darkness that slipped through the cracks.
“So, where do we start, oh great strategist?” Voren asks, his voice dripping with sarcasm.
Dreven shoots him a look that could freeze hell. “We start where it began. The crypt.”
“Boring,” I say, getting to my feet. I find myself at a disadvantage while these two loom over me. “That place is a dead end. Literally. The magic is spent, sealed by Nyssa’s very interesting blood. No, the energy that came through… it scattered. It didn’t linger. It ran.”
“And you can feel it?” Dreven asks, his silver eyes fixed on me. He’s always so serious. It’s exhausting.
“I can feel the ripples,” I correct him. “Chaos leaves a signature. An echo. Like a scream in the mountains. There are several new screams in this little town. The question is, which one do we want to shut up first?”
Voren sniffs the air. “The dead are agitated. There’s something new preying on the lost souls near the old docks. Something hungry.”
“See? An excellent starting point,” I say, clapping him on the shoulder. He glares down at my hand as if it’s tainting his pristine coat.
I pull my hand away with a flourish. “Don’t get your duster in a twist, Wraith Boy. It’s just a friendly gesture. You remember those, right? From before we were locked in a cosmic oubliette for a few centuries?”
Dreven ignores our exchange, his gaze fixed on the distant harbour where the fishing boats used to bob up and down back in the day. Now it is abandoned. “What kind of hungry?”
“The kind that doesn’t belong,” Voren says, his pale eyes losing focus as he listens to his spectral network. “It consumes them. Not just their energy. It erases them. It’s messy.”
“Messy is my middle name.” This is what I’ve missed. A puzzle to unravel, a force to push against. “Sounds infinitely more entertaining than staring at a sealed crack in the ground. What do you say, Dre? Fancy a trip to the seaside?”
He gives me a long, considering look, probably weighing the pros and cons of letting me off my leash. “Fine. But you will not engage without a plan.”
I laugh, a real, unrestrained bark of a laugh. “A plan? Where’s the fun in that? The best chaos is spontaneous.” Before he can argue, I give a jaunty salute. “Race you.”
With a thought, I let myself fall, dissolving into a flicker of red-gold energy that streaks through the rain-slicked air towards the smell of salt, fish, and devoured souls.
I re-form on a slick, rotting pier, the wood groaning under my boots.
The air here is thick, not just with the stench of brine and decay, but with a gnawing emptiness.
Voren was right. This isn’t the clean departure of a soul moving on; it’s a messy, violent erasure.
It’s like a hole has been chewed through the local spiritual ecosystem.
A shadow detaches itself from a pile of rusted lobster pots, and Dreven is there, his face a mask of distaste. “Subtle, Dastian.”
“Subtlety is for people with no other good qualities,” I retort, my gaze sweeping the dilapidated warehouses. “Where’s our ghost-whisperer?”
Voren appears at the end of the pier, a shimmer of cold mist in the rain. He doesn’t look at us. His focus is on something only he can see. “They’re terrified,” he murmurs. “It’s coming from the water. It has no name they know, only a hunger. It leaves nothing behind. Not even a memory.”
“Ondros?” I ask with a frown.
Voren shakes his head. “He isn’t here.”
I stare out over the sea, wondering what else could lurk in the depths other than the Water god. “So, something old or something new?”
“Old,” Dreven says. “But not our target. The recent upheaval has awoken the beast.”
“How do we get it to go back to sleep?”
He shrugs as if it isn’t his problem. Fair enough. It isn’t.
It is, however, Nyssa’s problem if this thing is going to make a menace of itself.
She is going to have to fight this thing, probably on her own, because she won’t ask for help.
Do not get me started on those Order of the Veil Guardians being any help whatsoever.
They are useless, spineless dicks who hide behind the slayer and take all the credit.
Normally, I’m not a huge fan of slayers, for a reason, but this one has piqued my interest beyond wanting to destroy her and her lineage, so the slayer line ends with her.
I actually find her quite charming, in a rough and ready way that makes my cock hard.
She will be a tough nut to crack, but when she does…
I sigh and try not to think about our worlds colliding in that way.
“Your obsession is showing,” Voren says, snapping me out of sexy thoughts. He’s watching me with those pale, knowing eyes of his. “First Dreven, now you. What is it about this particular mortal that has you both acting like idiots?”
“She’s not boring,” I say, which is the highest compliment I can give. “And she stabbed a goddess in the face. That earns a certain amount of respect, even from me.”
“So, you will help her?” Dreven asks, his voice cutting through the damp air. “You will interfere?”
“If it keeps her breathing.”
“Since when did that bother you?” Voren asks.
“Since it’s her.”
Voren smirks, but he doesn’t comment. He doesn’t need to. The fact of the matter is, we need her whether we like it or not, that is something we need to accept. If she dies cleaning up the local pests, we are all doomed, and I don’t say that lightly.