"Ikira wanted to meet you."

Claire rose, the smile freezing on her face as she faced Sofia. Sofia forced her own smile, noticing how Claire's gaze swept over her as if she were an uninvited insect in her bedroom.

Claire, Darian said again.

I know, Darian! she replied, hoping the man in her head didn't distract her.

"Hello, Claire," she said, extending a hand. "We haven't formally met. I'm ..." Claire shook her hand, and the visions that protruded into her thoughts floored her.

Czerno.

"... I'm Sofia," she choked out. "I wanted to welcome you."

"Enchante, Sofia. It's my pleasure," Claire said. "Pierre will defend you well. Damian couldn't have chosen a better guard."

"Babysitter," Pierre corrected her.

"Exactly," Sofia agreed. "I didn't have a choice."

"If you must be with a man, it's good that he's French," Claire said with a wink at Pierre. "Please excuse me."

Sofia stepped out of her way, trying hard to digest what she'd seen.

Claire and Czerno in bed together.

"Sofi!" Damian's call pulled her from the vision replaying in her head. "C'mon!"

He waved her out of the theatre and led her toward the mansion. She sensed his excitement and trailed, troubled.

"Heya, Dust-man!"

Three men stood in the main foyer, two in the same shade of brown as her bodyguard and a striking man in designer jeans and an expensive sweater. He shook hands with Damian, a small smile on his chiseled features. Dustin was lean and handsome with clear, cool blue eyes and sharp, angular features. His hair was sandy blond, his skin golden. His noble features and cold, aloof air gave her the impression of an ancient Greek prince.

"Good to see you!" Damian said with warmth she hadn't seen him display toward anyone else.

"Better circumstances this time around," Dustin said with a glance at her.

"Hold the salt, Dust-man," Damian warned. "Sofia, this is Dusty, the commander of the western hemisphere. He helped me rescue you from Czerno."

Her face felt warm at the look both gave her.

"It's a pleasure, ikira," Dustin said and held out his hand to her, palm up.

She looked at it curiously, then at Damian.

"You haven't taught her shit, have you?" Dustin asked Damian.

"Not the traditional greeting."

"Ikira, in our time, an Oracle greeted all visitors to the king's palace to assess their loyalties to her king. Visitors held out their hands like this," Dusty said, indicating his outstretched hand. "It's a sign of the ultimate respect. The visitor is giving you an open invitation to his soul. You have the option to touch me or not."

She braced herself and placed her palm against his. His memories were much like Damian's: fuzzy home videos with no sense of his future. She removed her hand. Dustin assessed her in silence for a few seconds, and she had the feeling his sharp gaze missed nothing.

"You're better off than when I saw you last," he said at last and turned to Damian. "You got time to talk, D?"

"Yep. Before we do, I need to discuss something with both of you. Come." He motioned them both down the hall and into his private study. "Pierre, stay."

Pierre obeyed and closed the doors behind him.

"How's Florida?" Damian asked, crossing to his desk.

"Good. Looking forward to Christmas," Dustin replied.

"Don't expect anything from Jule. He'll never remember Christmas. I already ordered your present."

"That's why I like you better."

"Dusty likes presents," Damian explained, glancing at Sofia.

"Good presents," Dustin clarified. "None of that shit you gave me last year."

"You don't get to pick. A present's a present."

Sofia sat in one of the plush chairs, legs pulled to her chest, and watched their brotherly exchange. Dustin didn't look like the kind of man who would like anything, let alone presents. She glanced toward the door, mind on what she'd learned earlier.

Claire. Darian wasn't crying for once, and his voice almost too hushed to make out.

Damian dropped an envelope on the table in front of her.

"There are traitors on the council," Damian started. "Our European front has been growing progressively weaker the past hundred years. They know what they shouldn't about our capabilities and our weaknesses. Jule's going crazy trying to keep up."

He pulled photos from the envelope as he spoke. Dustin began sorting through them. She didn't want to look, sensing she'd met a source of their issues already.

"Sofia, Han tells me you've gotten quite good at reading people," he said. "The quarterly council meeting is tonight. You'll get to meet all my council members."

Dread trickled through her.

"You can tell me who the traitors are."

"Is this what Oracles do?" she forced herself to ask.

"Oracles do many things, but this is one of them," Dustin responded. "It's unfortunate you don't have a mentor to show you more about your talents. The ability for you to determine a traitor from a loyalist is one of your most valuable talents. It's also what makes people hate Oracles."

"People hate Oracles?" she repeated, distraught.

"Let me rephrase-people fear Oracles. It's a good thing. The more people fear you, the less they'll fuck with you," Dustin said.

She rested her chin on her knees, gazing at Damian.

"You'll identify the traitors," Damian continued.

"Then we take them out back and-" Dustin ran his finger across his throat.

"You kill them?" she whispered, horrified. She gripped her throat with one hand.

"Bad people," Damian said. "People who would kill you. People like Czerno. Dusty takes care of these kinds of people."

"Yep," Dustin agreed.

She shuddered as the distant sensation of burning returned. If any man deserved death, it was Czerno. But did any man deserve death? And if she told Damian who to kill, did that make her worse than them? Her eyes slid to Dustin as she tried to reconcile the executioner with the man who liked presents. She met Damian's gaze.

"Ours is not a pretty world, kiri," he said firmly. "This is what you are."

It wasn't the reassurance she hoped for.

Stop Claire, Darian all but demanded. Trust Damian.

The dead man was getting annoying. The plan to identify traitors made sense, as ugly as it was. Who better to weed out traitors than the one who could see them for what they were?

"I wanted to see if you're to the point where you don't need human touch," Damian said, gesturing to the pictures.

She shook her head. She leapt up and closed the door behind her, turmoil in her breast. She didn't belong in the human world anymore, and yet, she couldn't just dump it. Her thoughts darkened and returned to Cody and Jake.

No, she could never become as cold and accepting of death as the men around her, even if they were at war with a monster like Czerno.

But it's my fate.

Damian's gaze lingered on the door after the Oracle fled. Something more than Dusty killing bad guys was upsetting her.

"Wasn't expecting that. Wanna visit the sector?" he asked, turning his attention to Dusty. "I'll show you what Rainy's guys found."

"Yeah."

He held out his hand, and Dusty clasped his wrist, allowing Damian to Travel them both to Tucson Sector HQ. They appeared in the quiet living room, turning at the startled gasp. Rainy's Natural, a beautiful woman with mocha skin and blue eyes, leapt up from her seat.

"No worries, Traci," Damian said, seeing her panicked look. She'd been there for about two months, not yet enough time to acclimate to the Guardians.

"Rainy around?" Dusty asked.

Traci's eyes were on Damian. A human's reaction to him never ceased to intrigue him. It was irritating most of the time, like now when he wanted to get a quick response out of one.

"Traci," Dusty said more sharply. She looked to him and blinked.

"He's sleeping," she said at last.

"You wanna wake him up or you want us to?" Damian asked in amusement. She hesitated only a moment longer before bolting and disappearing up a set of stairs.

"Can't take you anywhere, D," Dusty complained.

"Like you're normal," he replied.

"Who decorated this place?" Dusty groused, taking in the lopsided posters of cars and beer bottle decor.

"You're such a woman, Dusty," Damian said with a chuckle.

"Speaking of women ..." his friend said, pinning him with a look. "What's up with your Oracle? She didn't seem happy today."

"Damned if I know. She walked in on me and Claire last night."

"I bet that went well," Dusty said dryly.

"Nothing happened, and they're both pissed at me. You didn't tell me Claire was coming this way, Dusty."

"D, I didn't know. You can blame Jule for that one. Is Sofia doing any oracl-ing yet?"

"She's learning. Han says she's progressing pretty quickly, though since none of us know how to train her, it's hard to tell. She's trying," Damian said. "We'll find out what she can do when our guests arrive."

"Ikir, boss," Rainy greeted them as he trotted down the stairs, dressed in jeans and nothing else. "You scared the shit outta Traci."

Damian caught his eye and looked pointedly at Dusty, silently asking if the Guardian had done as he asked and told his boss that the Natural was more than a new recruit. Rainy smiled faintly with a nod.

"What'd you find?" Dusty asked, oblivious to the exchange.

"Traci found several of the vamps' stash houses here in Tucson," Rainy said, motioning them to follow him into a small, dark study humming with electronics.

He sat down in front of a computer and pulled up a satellite image with the stash houses marked.

"This is what's interesting," he said, pointing to a trail leading from a stash house on the northeastern side of the city and dead ending in the desert. "She can't pick up anything past this point."

He drew a box around a large area.

"Only you and Czerno can put up one of those types of shields," Dusty muttered to Damian.

"And it's not mine," Damian responded. "Any cell phone intercepts on why he's in town?"

"The local intelligence collection team is having a problem tracking his vamps. We think they're using disposable cells. As soon as we get a number, it goes inoperable."

"But we know he's here," Dusty said.

"Yeah, pretty sure. This area is ten square miles, though. Unless we know where to look, we won't find where his base is."

"It can't be a coincidence he's here, a few miles from you," Dusty said, turning to Damian.

Damian nodded. He suspected Czerno's Watcher allies tipped him off.

"The vamps we've captured for interrogation have a new technique. They've been killing themselves with cyanide pills," Rainy added.

"What happened in Europe is happening here," Damian said, meeting Dusty's gaze. "Antoine probably wasn't the main threat in Europe."