Gates of Rapture (The Guardians of Ascension) (3 page)

When she had left Leto to be with Casimir, she had experienced a profound prescience that Casimir was destined to die and that if she didn’t leave with him, Leto would die as well: To not love them both would be to lose them both.

She had no proof, just her ascender’s powerful intuition.

Casimir had understood this to be his truth as well: that his future was tied to Leto’s and in that intertwined fate, Casimir would surely die.

For that reason, she and Casimir had approached Beatrice about finding a way to prevent Casimir’s impending demise. Beatrice had taken their request seriously, and after praying and meditating for several days, she had returned with the firm conviction that the only way Casimir could prevent his death was by entering the redemption program. “But you must see it through,” she had said, “to the end, otherwise I can guarantee nothing for you. Do you understand?”

So Casimir had begun the program, hoping to alter his future.

But a surprise had followed, for from that first immersion into the initial graded baptismal pool, Grace had lost the ability to scent him and he could no longer smell what he called her meadow scent. At that point, she felt she understood something of the purpose of the
breh-hedden
between Casimir and herself: that she was the vehicle by which he could come to Fourth Earth and enter the redemption pools.

Grace had taken great comfort in this turn of events because leaving Leto behind had weighed down her heart. Her time with Casimir, despite how necessary it seemed to be, had been a betrayal of Leto. She could look at it no other way.

Yet in order to save them both, she’d had to align with Casimir first. Would Leto ever understand? Ever forgive her?

The process of being redeemed, however, had become a personal nightmare for Casimir. It involved a continual life review, and an exploration of every sin. Atonement was called for at each stage, and dear Creator, Casimir had so very much to atone for.

He had shaved off his beautiful dark curls as well, a sign of his determination. He was now bald and had tattooed his skull with Grace’s name, as well as the names of his children, Kendrew and Sloane, in an elegant dark blue script.

Almost as quickly, therefore, as the affair had begun, it had ended, and all Casimir’s energy had turned to the process of redeeming his life. Yet even though her desire for him had ended, still she loved him. She understood his worth and hoped that in time, he would at last be the man he was meant to be.

“In all of this,” Beatrice asked, intruding on Grace’s reveries, “what is your greatest concern?” Her fingers grew very still as she met Grace’s gaze.

Grace removed one hand from the loop of yarn and pressed it against her chest. “That even though I have set for myself such strong goals, like returning and participating in obsidian flame and going after Greaves, I still don’t feel real in my life, fully present.”

“You’re restrained,” Beatrice said. “It’s a very old habit of yours but not necessarily a bad one.”

“I suppose at times restraint has advantages, but sometimes I feel like a ghost in my own life.” She slipped her arm through the skein once more.

“What a strange thing to say. And yet I believe you are right. But are you sure you’re ready to return to Leto?”

Grace felt her desire for him flow through her, a tender wave of sensation that ended with her heart beating a little harder. “Yes. I have missed him so much.”

Beatrice smiled. “I believe you have loved him for a very long time. Centuries perhaps.”

Grace thought it possible. Leto had been the true desire of her heart, even when she’d been in the Convent. During those decades when she’d been a novitiate, she had written hundreds of erotic poems with him in mind, as though her soul had been calling to him all those years.

She had been in the Convent when her obsidian power had first emerged and led her to Moscow Two. She had experienced the strangest sensation and had actually split into an apparition-form that had carried her straight to him. That he had been able to see her had been a miracle all in its own, for even Greaves, who was there, hadn’t been able to see her.

She had saved him from certain death that night. Greaves had intended to kill him then and there. But Grace, in her apparition-form, had brought him safely back to the Convent. Later, she had taken him to the Seattle hidden colony. She then spent the next several days just keeping him alive by offering him her blood. Because Leto had been taking dying blood, at Greaves’s insistence, he was in a profound state of withdrawal that threatened his life.

Only when given Havily’s blood, which mimicked dying blood, did Leto finally begin to recover. Though the process remained a complete mystery, Havily’s blood had cured his addiction to dying blood.

Beatrice’s hands remained in her lap, her graceful fingers curled over the large lavender ball.

“You want to say something to me,” Grace said. “I have sensed it all morning.”

Beatrice’s shoulders dipped. “It is so cliché, and I’m embarrassed at the choice of proverb. I’ve searched my mind a thousand times for better words, but cannot find them. And there is my greatest vanity; I always wish to appear wise.”

Grace laughed, even though her heart was breaking. Her decision to leave had suddenly become very real, and she would miss both Beatrice and Casimir. She could feel change washing toward her, a break of endless waves that would not stop just because Grace wished it otherwise. “Just say it.”

Beatrice sighed. “
Be true to yourself
. There. Now you may mock me for my lack of originality.”

Grace wanted to laugh. “I want to do just that but I don’t understand who I am?”

“Understanding comes in its own time.” Beatrice put a hand to her chest and breathed a sigh of relief. “Oh, that is much better. Don’t you agree?”

“You are quite absurd, my friend.”

“Yes. And I am vain. That I will admit. I am terribly vain. My greatest flaw. Something I am certain I passed on to my son.”

Grace laughed again. She might even have asked how she could know herself better, but at that moment she heard the tinkling of a bell, which meant that one of the apprentices was moving at a quick, levitating pace up the long marble hall. Everyone on Fourth moved with advanced levitation. Very few walked about as Grace did. Her own levitation powers were minimal compared with others’ on this world. But as the bell drew closer, Grace could sense that something was wrong. No one ever hurried as they moved about Beatrice’s home.

Casimir was in trouble. She could feel it now. She released a heavy breath and drew in an even deeper one. He was still at the pools.

Grace rose just half a second before Beatrice. The ball of yarn slipped from her forearms to drop to the marble and bounced off to Beatrice’s right.

The apprentice appeared, a petite black woman with diamonds laced through her braids.

“What is it, Eugenie?” Beatrice called out.

The woman put her palms together, her hands slanting toward the floor. “Forgive me, mistress, but Casimir says he must speak with Mistress Grace.”

Grace wanted to run to him. Her lover,
her former lover,
was in such agony, day in and day out. By Casimir’s account, the process was like having molten lava poured over his soul one minute out of every two.

“Where is he?” Beatrice asked.

“On the deck beside the third pool.”

“The third pool,” Beatrice cried. “Foolish vampire. He should not have done so. He had not even completed the proper sequence of baptisms for the second pool.” She nodded. “We will come to him at once.”

“Thank you, mistress. He … that is, we had to use the restraints.”

Grace repressed the tears that rushed to her eyes. She wanted to run to him, to fold to him. She even started to, but Beatrice held up her hand. “You must calm yourself. More is gained in situations like this with a tranquil spirit.”

Grace drew back then took yet another deep breath. Beatrice was right. She had learned one thing while sitting at Beatrice’s knee: As restrained as Grace was, and as much as some of that restraint had to leave, there were times when it was necessary.

Grace nodded.

Beatrice rose a foot above the polished marble floor and began to move in that same form of levitated flight, but very slowly.

Grace, lacking the power to achieve the same kind of movement, walked beside her in a measured maddening cadence. But not for a second did she lose that terrible urge to run to him.

*   *   *

Leto sat in his executive chair in the Seattle Colony’s Militia Warrior HQ at the far northern end of the narrow valley. The tremors were increasing. He had a little over four minutes.

Gideon stood in front of his desk wearing blood-spattered flight gear that also had bits of feathers and other debris stuck to it. He spoke quickly. He knew the drill with Leto. Everyone did. There weren’t many secrets in the relatively small community.

“The death vamps are getting closer. We ran into a couple of squadrons and took care of business. We offed eight of them. Big motherfuckers. We collected several more transmitters.”

Leto wanted to know more, but he spasmed deep in his gut and held up his hand. Thank the Creator that Gideon fell silent. This change was coming fast.

Leto rested his forearms on his chair and breathed through the agony that flowed within his veins, the latest turn in his splintered life. The addiction to dying blood was gone, at least the part that was like knives slicing up his intestines. When he had served as a spy and in order to sustain his mission, he took dying blood at Greaves’s insistence. For decades, Greaves had turned numerous members of the ruling council of Second Earth, known as COPASS, into hypocritical versions of death vampires. Greaves provided the dying blood so that his followers wouldn’t actually have to do the killing of mortals or ascenders themselves. He also provided the antidote, which served to halt the physical changes that dying blood created in the individual, even if the searing addiction remained.

A few months ago, when he’d been at the point of death, Leto had taken Havily’s blood, which had miraculously cured him of his addiction. Havily was Warrior Marcus’s
breh,
and the sharing of her unique blood with Leto had been a great kindness for which he would be forever grateful.

But something terrible remained, an incomprehensible residue that lived in his body. When the morphing occurred, he became like a tiger pacing the jungle floor, restless and starved, ready to attack.

He breathed again, but his shoulders strained forward and his spine arched.

The section leader wiped his forehead, which did little more than smear blood into his sweaty hairline. Gideon was a Militia Warrior operating at Warrior of the Blood status, thanks in part to his vampire DNA but in more recent months to Warrior Jean-Pierre’s newly acquired ability to channel warrior powers.

Everything was changing.

Finally, Leto was able to speak again. He looked up at Gideon once more. “Give me details,” he said, clenching his fists. He had maybe three minutes.

Gideon’s nostrils flared. “We tracked them into the mountains. The mist-dome seems to be holding. At every juncture within ten feet of the dome, the detail would turn away, but each time they did, another one of their group, observing at a distance, would lay down another transmitter.” He tossed the small black box onto the desk.

Leto stared at it. His cheeks cramped as a round of nausea swept over him. Still, he persevered. “Do we know exactly what this is yet?”

“The techs think it might be some kind of satellite mapping technology. We tried to get them all, but this is a huge perimeter.”

“Shit,” Leto muttered. “They’re mapping the location of the colony through negative space.”

“That’s what it looks like. Maybe they can’t see the mist, and maybe the mist turns them away, but laying out these transmitters will eventually create a map.”

“It also means we’ve run out of time.” He wasn’t even sure they’d get through the three days set aside for the warrior games.

Gideon seemed to settle into himself as he said, “Agreed.”

Leto turned the box over in his hand and breathed through another heavy vibration. This news wasn’t good, but his current physical situation right now was even worse. His vision had started the paring-down process; soon he would see everything through a black tunnel.

Brynna sent,
You’ve got two minutes.

Got it.

He turned back to Gideon. He was really feeling the change coming. His lips parted and he started breathing through his mouth. He leaned forward in his chair. Could he even get the next set of words out?

“You and your men get cleaned up and double the patrols. Let’s get as many of these transmitters as we can. That should buy us some time.”

Gideon nodded, turned, and left the room. Thank God.

His breathing grew rougher, heavier. This one had come on so fast.

Shit.

“Get up,” Brynna said. “Now.”

He pushed up from the chair. Sweat popped all over his body.

By the time he stood, he was hunched and shaking. “Get me out of here,” he said, between clenched teeth.

He felt her palm on his shoulder. He cursed long and loud as the slide through nether-space began. He didn’t know why, but it hurt like a bitch to dematerialize when the transformation started.

He arrived in the basement of his cabin. He’d built his home deep in the forest, at the edge of the mist-dome, to keep what he went through as private as possible. He collapsed on the hard stone floor, laid and mortared by his own hands. He curled up in a fetal position, trying to stop the process.

“You gotta let go,” Brynna said. “Stop holding it in. Just let go, you idiot-bastard.”

He huffed a laugh. “I … don’t want … this.”

“I don’t know why not,” she said sarcastically. “You look so comfortable on the floor sweating like a pig.”

“Now get out of here. You know what happened last time.”

“Hey, the scars are almost gone.”

Again, he chuffed a laugh. Brynna was a powerful vampire. She’d stayed once, they’d fought, he’d cut her up some but she’d healed within an hour.