Gates of Rapture (Guardians of Ascension 6)

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.