Free Vesik 04 - This Broken World by Eric Asher

Nixie and her Queen, and the latest nightmare, the awful story of my birth.
    Beware the Watchers. His master will reveal the path. Raise him well.
    What did that mean? What are the sons of Anubis? And what does that make me?

CHAPTER TEN
     
    “A gain.”
    “Again he says, always again,” I muttered as I picked my aching body up out of the grass again. Bloody hell, I hadn’t been so beaten down by training or practice since I was a kid with Zola. I wiped the blood off my lip and spat onto the ground.
    “I’m eating lunch,” I said. “If you’d care to join me, super.” I stomped off toward the cabin, crossing the patch of ground where Zola and the fairies had helped me bury the various pieces of the demon, Azzazoth.
    Dell had been gone when I’d woken up that morning. The Old Man told me he’d said goodbye. I’d miss him. That was for damn sure. The Old Man was like Zola without a sense of humor.
    I let the front door smack closed behind me as I stomped into the cabin and angled straight for the old fridge. I opened the freezer. The Old Man had said Dell had left me a present in the ice chest. I figured he meant the freezer. There was an oblong pack wrapped in butcher paper and twine. I pulled it out and slammed the freezer. The twine came off easily and I tore the butcher paper off.
    A blue bag of frozen chimichangas greeted me. I stared at them for a moment and blinked.
    The front door opened and squeaked as it closed behind the Old Man.
    “How the hell did he know?”
    “Zola told us.”
    I looked at him, at the scars that turned his face into a roadmap of pain and history. It was easy to forget what he’d been through. That he’d lost family and friends. Friends who might have lived if they’d just trained a little harder.
    I blew out a slow breath and laughed quietly. “You want one?” I asked as I tore open the bag.
    He nodded.
    I slapped two down on a plate that was probably not microwave safe, pushed the handle down on the ancient microwave to open the door, and fired it up.
    “Thanks,” I said without looking at him.
    He didn’t respond, but he really didn’t need to.
    I dug around the fridge and turned up some sour cream. It was extra sour, being slightly expired, but I figured we’d survive. “Sour cream?”
    “I … suppose,” the Old Man said.
    The microwave dinged. I pulled the plate out, then cursed and juggled it briefly before sliding it onto the counter. It was definitely not microwave safe. I wrapped my hands around the cold tub of sour cream for a moment before I started slathering the chimichangas. I tucked some paper towels under the hot plate, tossed one of the chimichangas onto a separate plate, and then balanced both with a couple sodas and a handful of silverware.
    The Old Man had a TV tray set up in front of the couch and I snorted a laugh as I set his lunch down on it. “Old Man indeed.”
    He narrowed his eyes at me.
    “I heard you talking to Roach about Koda’s manuscript.”
    I nodded as I sat down in the old orange chair.
    “You left out many things.”
    “I didn’t know what you’d told him. I figured he was safer not knowing some of the things in that book.”
    “There is truth to that,” he before taking a bite. He frowned slightly, chewed, and then swallowed. “Not bad.”
    “You mean awesome,” I said around a mouthful of food.
    He laughed quietly, and I saw some echo of the man he might have been a long time ago. “What I truly wonder about,” he said, “is whether Dell is safer not knowing everything, or if it puts him in more danger.”
    “Why didn’t you tell him about the Nameless King?” I asked.
    The Old Man’s soda opened with a crack and a hiss. He took a long drink before he looked back at me. “Dell is not strong enough to face an Old God on his own. I don’t want him to read of the Eldritch Gods and the dark-touched. He is stronger than he realizes, but for him to be effective in battle, it would be best if he did not realize just