Xander's Chance (#1, Damian Eternal)

Prologue: Chapter Two

Chapter Two

Twenty years later

Immortal world

Eden stood on top of the tavern overlooking the immortal city of the Grey God. The two visions that haunted her since she was a child were forefront in her mind. As an Oracle, she’d foreseen this moment in time, as well as another. Both were possible, until this very moment, where she would know if her efforts to save her world succeeded.

She paced along the rooftop, waiting for the dreaded vision to fade. In order to prevent the destruction of the human world, she’d taken an aggressive, borderline reckless, course of action. One that had to pay off. She, Eden, the Original Human, would be the one who saved the human realm by killing the Gatekeeper, the God who maintained the bridges between worlds. With the bridges open, the threat she’d foreseen was going to overtake the human world.

“What happens next?”

She spun. The man before her – a Watcher by his glowing green eyes and the Original Watcher by his unusual height of nearly six feet – was smiling. One of two immortal sects whose war threatened the realms, the Watchers were supposed to keep their noses and hands out of human affairs.

“The Grey God falls, and my kind is safe,” she replied instantly.

“No, Eden, what happens next?”

She knew what he was asking. With a unique vantage point into the world, the Watchers were able to perceive what she couldn’t. She was an Oracle, a human with the spotty ability to predict the future. The gift served her well. It let her amass an army unlike any that had ever existed and showed her the key to victory.

However, here was where the gift’s usefulness ended.

“I’ve had no other visions,” she said. “Nothing beyond this moment.”

“Do you ever wonder why?”

“Certainly. But clearly, I am meant to be here, now, to fulfill this destiny.”

“Your involvement doesn’t end here, not if you want anyone to live through this.”

Eden studied him then faced the dome marking the Grey God’s palace. She strode to the edge of the roof. The streets of the city were littered with dead. The armies of vampires spared no one. Warriors, women, infirmed, elderly, children. All fell beneath the creatures she created in the human realm and used the bridges to cross into this one. The city would be completely dead before morning, decimated within a day.

“It is what it is,” she said.

“Is it?” the Original Watcher asked. “There are only five of us Original Beings meant to exist. The Human, Watcher, Other, as-yet unborn Immortal and Vampire. Only one is a predator.”

“He kills out of necessity,” she said.

“You fed a predator human blood, and then you removed any kind of restraint standing between him and his nature.”

Eden said nothing. She wasn’t certain where her perfect killer was right now. Assuming she’d done all she was supposed to in order to achieve her goal, she would know his location within minutes.

“You have become the only thing holding him back. You replaced his mother; it’s how he views you.”

“He is no threat to me. You fear for your own life, Watcher?”

“We Originals cannot kill one another without destroying the worlds,” the Watcher said.

No sense of humor, Eden said to herself.