Damian's Assassin

Dusty rose to pull on his gym clothes. He'd never thought twice of his mortality-- he had none. Damian had granted him immortality along with his other demigod powers, plus the one authority no other immortal had: the ability to kill one of their own who got out of 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 percent sure Jule was leading the pack on that one as his latest attempt to win some bet with Damian about their diverse leadership styles.

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 a while.

After an hour-long attempt to expel his wired energy, he returned to his room to the sound of his cell phone ringing. A quick glance at the screen told him it was one of his most trusted Guardians, Toni. It was a call he'd been expecting but hoping not to get.

"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." He dressed quickly and Traveled to the scene.

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. Toni spotted him and trotted over.

"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, Toni, 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?"

"They're too crispy."

Dusty 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 shouted as he scoured the gutters around the church. "No battery."