Jonny flung off his coat and boots then sat in a chair in the living area, brooding.
Jenn approached when he stilled. She shrugged out of her coat without releasing the notebook and sat across from him on the black couch. The notebook was filled with diary-like entries. She flipped through it.
"What am I looking for?" she asked.
"This was Czerno's before it was mine."
She looked up, surprised.
"My entries start where the red string is. He didn't write in it the last month or so before his death, but look at his last entry."
She did so, hands almost shaking in anticipating. This was the Holy Grail for a spy! The plots and minds of two Black Gods in the palm of her hand!
Jenn flipped to the string and read the short entry. She frowned.
"Read it aloud," Jonny ordered, leaning forward.
Jenn obeyed. "They're going to get rid of me. This much has been clear for months, since the Oracle made her appearance. It was so before the Schism, when the White God took an Oracle as his bride and was himself betrayed. If I am fortunate, I will have the Grey God at my command before my demise. They cannot destroy me when I will determine which world survives." "Which world survives," Jonny repeated. "Now, read my entry from the day I met Xander, four weeks ago today."
Jenn flipped. Jonny's handwriting was harder to read, tiny and tight, where Czerno's held a calligraphic flair.
"He promised to take me to the immortal records when he finds the door to the immortal realm, the ones that will tell me about the Grey God," she read. "If we can't stop the Grey God, the mortal world will not survive. Jonny, what are you telling me?"
"I'm telling you that Darian is about to destroy one world. It is his destiny as the Grey God. It almost happened millennia ago. It will happen this time," the Black God said. "The Others want to prevent it. They showed me what they can do and wiped out every vamp I have on the East Coast. I thought the Guardians were cursed without their magic, but the Others can't track them. Instead, they track and kill my vamps. I hate them, but I finally threw my hat in the ring with them to stop Darian and to stop them from slaughtering my people."
She heard his words but couldn't quite digest that Darian would knowingly destroy any world. Jonny and his predecessor clearly believed the Grey God was a danger to their own world.