The Grey God

"He won't be eatin' anymore of my rabbits," Yully said with satisfaction.

"You turned him from a vamp into a uh … nonvamp?" Darian asked, fascinated. "Seriously, you can do that?"

"Together we can," Bianca replied. "I did it once to Jonny, long ago, before …" She drifted off, darkness crossing her features.

At her silence, Yully spoke. "Bianca needed more magic to do it, and I can channel anything. I'm not called the Magician for no reason."

"Bianca," Darian said. "You're not thinking of trying to change your brother back."

The Healer shook her head. "I know that's not his fate. But I also know he made a mistake long before he became the Black God. I fixed him, but he wasn't a fully turned vamp yet. With Yully, I can change even a full vamp back into a human. There might be others like him who want to go back to who they were. I can help them. It'll be another tool for Damian to use against the vamps."

Darian smiled, doubting the White God would remotely agree with the two women before him but proud of them nonetheless.

"We need more vamps," Yully said. "We have to try again."

"You turn vamps into humans, and I kill Others. We're quite a family," Darian said.

"I don't like Others," Yully said darkly. "They'll come after you if you mess with them, Darian."

Darian met her gaze. Raised by a sadistic Other who beat her, the Magician Yully had used the magic of all of them to kill the creature that planned to use her to sever the boundary between mortal and immortal worlds before wiping out Watchers and humans.

"I can kill them now," he said. "I promise. Nothing bad will happen to any of us."

The two women stared at him quizzically. The awkward lull in talk made him wonder if a certain Oracle had told them otherwise.

"What am I missing?" he asked uneasily.

"That's not what Sofi says," Yully said at last.

"I made you cookies, Darian," Bianca said quickly and started to the kitchen. "We'll check on Charles later."

"Thanks. I've grown out of cookies," he said. Darian resisted the urge to tell her he was no longer the lost man who asked her for cookies every day. He sometimes felt like his family treated him like a child when he'd grown overnight into a god. "Now, what's going on?"