Gates of Rapture (Guardians of Ascension 6)

What bemused her, however, was just how much she perspired from every cell of her skin as well as her wings.

Greaves began to advance on her, a satisfied smile on his face. He moved through his advanced levitation and gained speed.

Shit, if he plowed into her, he could knock her into the water, and she had the worst feeling she would never get out. Wings and water did not mesh at all.

Her genetics began to speak to her about the fluids she shed. They had a purpose, but she couldn’t quite make it out.

Greaves had completed half the distance.

On he came, his protective plates writhing as he floated. His eyes were almost black as he stared at her. He lowered his chin.

She knew what would happen. He was a bull charging her, and only speed would get her away.

Greaves drew within fifteen feet, formed a missile with his body, then charged.

But she had the ability to flit in this form. She twisted a couple of times with her wings and was suddenly thirty feet away and to the southeast. She flapped her new wings, hovering. She smiled. Damn, she liked this form.

She waited for Greaves to charge her, but for some reason he didn’t move as he watched her from a distance. He looked as though he was injured as he held a hand over one of the plates. But exactly how had she hurt him?

His hand fell away as he straightened and looked up at her.

Endelle wondered if when she’d twisted and whisked away, she’d struck him with her foot, but she didn’t remember making contact.

All around her, Thorne’s force battled death vampires. She could hear dozens of war cries sounding again and again. She heard the flapping of wings, sword rasping against sword, and occasionally a scream of pain.

She also heard water splashing and the rumble of speedboats below her.

When Greaves once more sped up his levitation and came barreling toward her through the air, her perspiration increased. It came from every part of her body, wings included.

As he drew near, she moved but not quite fast enough. He caught her right hip and sent her spiraling. She moved her wings but couldn’t quite catch air. She tumbled in the direction of the water. She calmed her mind and allowed her new body to right itself so that her wings went through a new wicked twist.

She now floated just a few feet above the water. Her heart was a jackhammer.

She searched for Greaves, but couldn’t find him.

On instinct she began to fly straight up. As she did, hands clamped around her feet and began pulling her down once more toward the water.

She looked down. Greaves’s morphed body looked strange, as though he’d been pelted with baseball-sized balls of hail.

Down he dragged her. As hard as she flapped her wings, she had no strength to withstand his physical and muscular superiority as the being he had become.

If he got her under the water, she would drown.

But there was something more, something that worked at her subconscious mind.

She sweat profusely now, but the flapping of her wings sent all that perspiration into a spiral above her.

Then she understood.

She drew her wings in, which of course plummeted her more quickly to a sure death. At the same time, she focused on the fluids leaking from her, increasing the volume and letting them flood Greaves.

He screamed and released her. She flitted back into the air, barely escaping the lake’s surface. She glanced down. Greaves was writhing in the water. It wasn’t sweat that she perspired, but droplets of acid. How grateful she was to have trusted the image in the future streams.

Greaves thrashed in the lake for some time, but it was clear the water wasn’t helping and that his protective biological plates were being eaten away. She couldn’t imagine the pain that he experienced right now.

Endelle remained in her elevated position. She wouldn’t go near him until she was sure he was completely subdued.

At last, Greaves’s plated form floated on the surface, faceup. His eyes were closed. He was still alive, but barely.

Thorne, I need you, she sent.

A few seconds later, as he approached, she added, Not too close. She then explained about her acid-based, built-in defense mechanism.

He kept his distance. Glancing at Greaves, he said, “That explains the deep pockmarks and oozing blood.”

“I can’t believe he’s still alive.”

“What do you want to do with him?”

Endelle thought about summoning obsidian flame to make use of some serious hand-blast capacity and incinerate him on the spot. She also thought about having him tried for war crimes.

“Can we even contain him?” Thorne asked. “Or will he just dematerialize and go heal himself somewhere?”

A number of boats arrived. She glanced to her right and saw that the triad was in one of the foremost, all eyes cast in Greaves’s direction. Fiona had her hand to her mouth and finally looked away.

But it was Grace who called out, “Madame Endelle, would you consider relinquishing him to Beatrice? Can you give Greaves a choice?”

Grace was suggesting that Greaves be granted something he had never granted a single person whose life he’d been the means of ending.

Fury filled her. She wanted to pluck Greaves out of the water and continue to bathe him in acid until his flesh and bones were completely dissolved.

Behind her the sounds of battle had grown fainter and more distant. Thorne’s regiment had done its job.

She stared down at Greaves. She wanted him dead for two thousand years of misery that he had brought down on her, on her warriors, on all of Second Earth.

She lifted her wings and felt the perspiration forming once more. But Grace was suddenly in flight and hovering above Greaves. She called out, “I promised Beatrice I would try. Let Greaves go to his mother, to enter the redemption program. It will be punishment enough. Then he can become what he might have been if he had not been tortured and abused as a child. Please, Endelle, let Beatrice try.”

Endelle didn’t want Greaves reprieved. She wanted him to pay for everything he had done.

She looked at Thorne, but he just shook his head. Your call on this one, he sent. But you need to make the decision quickly. Every warrior here will want him dead. Soon, you won’t have a choice.

So this was to be her call. She had seen Casimir’s change. He was a new man, and his conscience would demand penitence for centuries to come. She knew that the redemption program was its own form of punishment that essentially lasted a lifetime because of the rebuilding of the conscience.

Greaves would suffer.

He was also beginning to recover. Greaves had powerful self-healing abilities. He began swimming to shore, lumbering through the water. She called out to the triad, “Once he reaches the bank, cast an energy field over him while I figure this out. Alison has that ability.”