Gates of Rapture (Guardians of Ascension 6)

Patience shook her head, and as tears tracked down her cheeks she told of James having ripped her out of the sky to serve on Third at the portal with him. She had been able to tell James when Greaves created the breach and just how many Third Earth death vampires he had ready to help him in his bid to take over Second Earth. “I wish it could have been done differently, because I know my sudden disappearance wounded you both.”

Grace reached out to her and took her hand. “I knew you weren’t dead, but you’re right, it hurt so much to lose you.” She glanced at Marguerite and reached for her hand as well. “But you see how everything has turned out. We have a new sister, and we will become aunts to her twins.”

Patience admitted that one of the advantages of her situation was that she had been able to know the significant events of her siblings’ lives. She couldn’t have stayed on Third helping James without some information.

“I suppose now that Greaves is contained on Fourth, James allowed you to come here.”

“Yes.”

She then looked up at Casimir. There was such a soft light in her eye that Grace said, “Am I seeing what I’m seeing?” She glanced from Patience to Casimir.

He covered Patience’s hand with his own. “The moment I arrived at the portal, I scented her.”

“Oh, my God.” Grace put her fingers to her mouth as her eyes filled with tears. She felt Leto’s arm surround her shoulders.

Are you okay with this? he sent.

She turned to him. “More than okay. Don’t you see how perfect this circle is?” Of course, she had one concern and shifted her gaze to Patience. “But you do know that Casimir and I—” She found the words impossible to say.

But it was Patience who rolled her eyes. “Grace, I was never celibate like you. And I’ve had many wild centuries. Casimir knows that. We’ve talked it all over. As for your relationship with him on Fourth, we’ve agreed that without you having taken him there, he would never have entered the redemption pools and would never have agreed to serve as Leto’s Guardian of Ascension. I met him, essentially, because of you, so I regret nothing.”

Grace looked from one to the other. She could see the breh-bond forming between them. Once more her eyes filled with tears. She just couldn’t believe that Casimir, of all ascenders, had brought Patience home.

A long series of embraces followed. Patience would return to Second Earth, and Casimir stated without hesitation that he wanted to make his home on Second, not just because of Patience but because of his boys as well. “After all,” he said, “I promised Kendrew and Sloane that Auntie Grace would always be in their lives.”

Grace smiled. “You know, I always promised to take them camping in the Cascades.” She took Leto’s hand. “I hope we can do that soon.”

Leto pulled her close. “Absolutely.”

Casimir frowned. “And the new school term is about to start. I’ll need to get them enrolled right away.”

Grace stared at Casimir for a long moment. It was hard to remember the man he had been. Never in a thousand years had she thought she’d hear him speak about enrolling his kids in school.

She thought of Greaves. If Casimir could be redeemed, maybe it was possible that Greaves could be transformed as well.

* * *

Beatrice sat in her favorite chair in her living room, the one with the footstool that Grace had occupied while helping Beatrice to roll her balls of yarn. She missed Grace and wished the younger woman was here. She needed some comfort.

She leaned forward and covered her ears. Tears began leaking from her eyes. She was trying to be strong, but her son’s screams could be heard all over her floating estate. His agony, his rage, his remorse had erupted from the moment he’d touched the water of the first pool, the gentlest pool, the one that was meant to ease the sinner into the process.

Instead, Darian might as well be bathing in fire.

How great were his sins.

More than could be numbered.

He was the author of blood slavery, he had led countless ascenders into addiction to dying blood, and he’d used his squads of death vampires to kill any who stood in his way.

Her son had no conscience.

And so he screamed.

Beatrice covered her ears and wept, unable to fathom how many years or decades or even centuries would be required to wash away the last ramification of all his evil deeds.

* * *

Grace had forgotten the trials of childhood. A vampire’s long life had created a nearly infinite distance between the sufferings of the two decades required to reach adulthood and the almost boundless challenges of living as a mature ascender.

She glanced at Leto, who stood on the opposite side of their small campsite, in a clearing in the forest on Mortal Earth, deep in the Cascades. He’d built a large campfire that had roared and crackled and was only now settling down.

She sat with Kendrew on her lap. He was the elder of Casimir’s boys—six years old now. Sloane sat in his kiddie camp chair, but he had drawn as close to her as he could get and held her hand tight.

These boys had had a rocky beginning, but their lives were beginning to smooth out and Grace was part of that, as she had promised.

But it was Kendrew who had brought up the current offense. He had entered the first grade in the Seattle hidden colony’s school and—children being what they had always been—one of his schoolmates had already brought up a supposed past crime of his father’s. He had told Kendrew that Casimir had been the instigator of a bomb attack in Las Vegas Two that had nearly killed twenty thousand people.

“I know for a fact that is completely untrue,” Grace said.

Kendrew twisted in her arms and looked up at her. “My papa didn’t do that terrible thing?”

“Not at all, and you can tell your friend that Fiona was there, Warrior Jean-Pierre’s breh, and she told me that it was Greaves who had ordered his death vampires to blow up the building. Your father hadn’t even known about it.” Greaves had intended for Casimir to die as well, but Grace didn’t think Kendrew needed to hear that.

Kendrew smiled and turned back around to face the fire. Sloane now leaned against her arm. It was getting late, and the boys were tired.

Grace shuddered inwardly on Kendrew’s behalf. Maybe the six-year-old who had attempted to malign Casimir had gotten the facts wrong in this case, but one day someone would speak the truth about his crimes; then what would Grace say? Casimir’s list of wrongdoings was long, horribly long, and the truth one day would be out.