by Caris Roane
“You bet. Now how can I help?”
“I need a secure location, probably the palace, to bring over a Third ascender with a Peter Pan complex, myself, and Warrior Samuel.”
“A Third ascender?”
“You heard me right.”
Jeannie whistled. “I’ve already got orders from Her Supremeness to do whatever you wanted. I have the fold set. Tell me when.”
“Let me check.” She held her phone by her leg and asked if the men could stop posturing long enough to join Endelle at the palace.
But Samuel held his hand up for a moment, then waved it once over his body. Poof: flight battle gear, including that damn sexy leather kilt.
Vela may have weaved slightly on her feet. After swallowing hard, she asked, “Can I give Jeannie the word?”
Samuel nodded.
Merl did the same.
Bringing her phone back to her ear, she said, “Fold at will.”
Central had a lot of power and the sudden brisk ride through nether-space was smooth as silk. Some believed that the disappearing-reappearing power typical of all five Upper Dimensions wasn’t about dematerialization at all, but the folding of space, hence the term. The debate still raged in all the major universities, but it was one of those theories hard to prove.
Whatever it was, Vela had always enjoyed folding-travel.
And as before, the moment she started down the ramp, Samuel took her hand in his.
Merl glanced around. “Some digs. Ro-tun-das.” The sing-song way he spread the word out made Vela chuckle.
“White mar-ble,” he added.
More sing-song, more laughter.
She turned to smile at him, but Samuel caught her eye and glared. He’s flirting.
Now she smiled at Samuel. No he’s not. He’s just being himself and he’s funny.
What-the-fuck-ever.
She chuckled some more, but squeezed his hand. I think he wants to meet Endelle more than anything else.
Ya think?
Then you should stop worrying about his designs on me.
He’s the kind of man who has designs on every woman.
This time, she met his gaze as they moved into Thorne’s Command Center. And you don’t?
This time, his lips curved and he didn’t quite meet her in the eye as he said, Used to.
Just as I thought, though she squeezed his hand again.
Thorne left one of the nearest stations and led them once more to Endelle’s private suite explaining that Jeannie had already let him know what was happening and that Endelle was on her way.
Vela moved to the far end of the couch, but Samuel chose to stand near her off to the side of the adjacent purple chair. Samuel introduced Merl, who had planted his feet opposite the couch, his arms folded over his chest.
Thorne held Merl’s gaze forcefully, like he knew exactly what game Merl played. But Merl stared back unaffected. Given the stature of each, the stare lasted a long time.
Merl appeared to enjoy pissing contests.
She wondered what Endelle would think of Merl.
* * * * * * * * *
Samuel thought Merl had probably jumped from the womb playing with fire because the moment Endelle entered the room, he turned the force of his flirtations on the leader of Second Earth.
Merl made a long speech, saying things about being humbled to meet She Who Would Live and that he’d looked forward to this moment for five decades. He took her hand, kissed her fingers.
Samuel had heard Endelle had hooked up with the Sixth ascender, Braulio, who, rumor had it, was also the Sixth ascender, James. Weird fucking times on Second Earth.
What the hell is he doing? Vela slipped into Samuel’s mind easily. And he liked it.
He glanced down at her, met her gaze, and shrugged. Hell if I know. But Braulio had better make an appearance pretty quick.
No, shit.
Samuel withheld a smile, but he met Thorne’s astonished gaze. Thorne shook his head as though he couldn’t figure Merl out either.
A moment later, Alison and Fiona entered, looking puffy-eyed but beautiful from being awakened in the middle of the night. At first, Samuel thought Merl might attempt to spread his charms in their direction, but he remained fixed on Endelle, a predatory glint in his eye.
Endelle, however, turned a shoulder to the interloper, made the introductions to Alison and Fiona, then had Vela lay out her plans.
The women listened quietly, eyes wide.
“Can you do this for us?” Vela asked.
“Of course,” Alison said.
Fiona nodded.
Vela addressed Alison. “And you think you could reconfigure one of the shotguns?”
“I’ll know as soon as I approach one.” Alison repressed a yawn and blinked a couple of times. She had a flying toddler at home and needed her sleep.
“We’ll want Leto as well,” Endelle said. “You three women need to work on these skills and see what you can figure out. We’ve got to get a wrecker weapon, one that will take down a darkening grid wall, so that we can pull Duncan out of his cell. Are we all clear on this?”
Nods and murmurs followed.
Samuel had to admit he felt oddly comfortable in this room, as though his dark power recognized the other ascenders. Which sparked other thoughts, not so pleasant, like his deepest fears that somewhere in this necessary exercise, his currently dormant streams of energy would hurt one of these people accidentally.
He corralled his thoughts, however, and focused on Vela. She appeared calm, but her foot bounced, not surprisingly. His role to support and defend was one thing, but Vela led the charge.
Endelle’s voice intruded. “All right, let’s give the women some space to work.”
Thorne led the way for the men and Endelle to leave the room. Once well into the next rotunda, he drew the party to a stop and asked for more details about the darkening grid, the explosions, and Duncan’s cell.
Samuel knew the drill and gave as many relational points as he could; length of travel time, dimension of the cell, the changing state of the floor as one location surpassed the next, the size of the grid tunnels, and anything else that came to mind. Merl added what he knew as well.
Thorne listened intently, his hazel eyes shifting between both men.
When Samuel finished his account, Thorne called out to Jeannie and requested Leto to join them right away. Leto had taken Thorne’s sister, Grace, as his breh, so that essentially they were brothers-in-law.
Leto arrived within the next few minutes but Endelle’s first words were, “We’ll need you in your beast-state. You, Thorne, and Samuel are headed to Third in the darkening.”
Leto’s brows rose and though he stared back from faintly astonished blue eyes, he merely nodded. With a blur of movement, he morphed into what he called his beast state, although he appeared exactly the same, just bigger. And taller.
Samuel hadn’t seen him this close up, but even he could agree the warrior looked like a god. “Fuck,” he drawled.
“Get used to it.” But the words came from both Merl and Leto at the same time.
“I take it this kind of thing is common on Third Earth?” Endelle pivoted toward Merl.
“It is.”
Endelle held his gaze. “So we’re really in this.”
His crooked smile spoke his compassion. “Looks like it.”
Endelle glanced at Samuel. “Bring Leto up to speed.”
Samuel laid it out, all that had happened as well as the current plan. But it was Merl who picked up the thread and gave the missing details about the wrecking squads. He explained what the warriors would be up against, how quickly the squads could move, how powerful they were, the nature of the weapons, and the odds looked pretty bad.
“What about you, Merl?” Endelle said, breaking the theme of this can’t really be done, with, “You gonna help out with this party? You got a pair of balls in those snug leathers of yours, or are you just a handsome face and all talk.”
“W
ish I could, but I’ve got a grid death warrant on my head put there by every faction involved. You’d have several squads after you the moment my signature lit up the darkening.”
Alison appeared at the doorway and called to them. “Please come back. We’ve got something going on in here. Vela’s feeling a call to the Illinois Seers Palace?”
Samuel moved fast and found Vela trembling as she stood near the glass coffee table. “What’s going on?”
“Another call.”
As soon as the rest of the party entered the room, however, she addressed Endelle. “Something’s going on and it’s big and it involves the Seers Palace, the one that Greaves built.”
“We shut it down.”
“Are you sure?”
Endelle took on her best scorpion look, ready, apparently, to take Vela apart for questioning her, but one of Thorne’s assistants arrived and spoke in a low voice to him.
“All right,” he murmured. He stood very still for a moment, his gaze stricken. Finally, he said, “I have to check on something. I’ll be right back.”
“Thorne, what the hell is it?”
“Let me find out what’s going on.” He disappeared into the hall beyond.
The entire room fell silent, tense, waiting.
No one spoke.
* * * * * * * * *
Vela gripped Samuel’s arm. This can’t be good.
No.
He sent nothing more, just a flat ‘no’ that echoed through her mind.
She kept her gaze fixed on the doorway, as did everyone else, but grew even more anxious when Thorne’s footsteps sounded in the rotunda beyond.
She pulled the top corners of her sweater together with her free hand.
Thorne arrived on the threshold, his lips in a tight, grim line.
“Okay, what the fuck is going on?” Endelle asked.
Thorne just stared at her.
“Did one of Greaves’s former generals attack?” Endelle’s chest rose and fell, the seashells clattering softly.
“All three of them. Looks like it was a coordinated, planned assault.”
“How many Militia Warriors did we lose?”
“Over two thousand.”
“Aw, Jesus.” She shaded her face with her hand.
Vela gasped.
Samuel murmured a low, “Oh, God, no."
Leto shook his head, but glanced at Thorne. “And we knew nothing about it? How is this possible?”
“I just spoke with Marguerite. Her crew, who works the Future Streams twenty-four-seven, saw nothing. Not a hint, a whisper, nothing.”
“Jesus. What the fuck does this mean?”
“Marguerite took a few seconds to dive in to take a look at the Illinois Two Seers Palace and she couldn’t get a reading.”
“What the hell?” Endelle’s voice carried a bit of resonance and that made Fiona groan. Fiona really couldn’t handle resonance.
Vela knew that the Illinois Seers Palace had been one of Greaves’s primary tools against Madame Endelle. Owen Stannett had harnessed Seers together and provided unparalleled information until he lost himself in the pleasure of the experience and Greaves got rid of him.
Her instincts began to thrum heavily as she thought about the Palace. The call returned, a kind of strong pull of her entire body into the darkening.
“Let me take a look,” she said, drawing all eyes to her.
“Go,” Endelle said.
She heard Samuel setting up a protest, but she knew this would be quick and easy, very different from a jaunt to Third.
She flowed straight back into the grid and began hurtling through the tunnels but not in the direction of Third Earth.
Suddenly, she reached her destination and knew she was deep inside the Illinois Seers Palace.
She remained very still, something her instincts told her would buy her some time.
She looked around. The chamber was made of black marble tile, with a viewing platform that looked down into a sort of pit. Seven chaise-longues were set in a row and reclining in the middle was a man she’d never seen before, but he had three braids on either side of his head looped into a clasp with the rest of his long hair. He had a prominent nose and a carefully trimmed black goatee. She knew this was the man who’d hurt Samuel: Sharav.
Oh, God.
She didn’t want to be here. If he was, who Merl said he was, then one of Chustaffus’s henchmen had taken over the Illinois Seer’s Palace.
He held a cell in his hand and every once in a while spoke into the cell. Vela knew he relayed information, but to whom?
Strapped to the chaise-longues were six women, of varying ethnicities, each wearing a white linen robe, and each grimacing as if in pain, eyes closed, sunk in a trance.
Her instincts pushed her forward until she pressed her mind against Sharav’s and slid in, just as she had with Endelle earlier. The image stunned her, of herself naked, in the darkening, lying on a stone floor.
The image meant something, but what?
Sharav opened his eyes, so she quickly pulled out. He looked in her direction, but didn’t make eye contact which meant he still couldn’t see her. He rubbed his goatee. All the women relaxed and many whimpered in relief.
“Who’s there? Great. More darkening shit. I don’t need this.”
He reached out his hand and folded a second strange looking cell-phone into it. The words he spoke chilled her to the bone. “I need a wrecker here. Now.”
Vela didn’t need a further hint. She turned and headed back the way she’d come, but shortly after she started moving, a blast sounded not far from her.
She returned to Endelle’s sitting room, sweating and trembling. She sealed the doorway again, her arms high and spread out, her power flowed, but she knew she didn’t have enough juice to complete the job.
“Merl,” she called out. “Need your help here.”
But Merl was already there, hands planted on the wall and she felt the entry point seal up.
She stepped back, staring at the darkening wall, watching it fade. In the great distance, she heard another blast but the wreckers were too late.
When she turned, Samuel took her by the arms. “Where the hell did you go? Vela, don’t take off like that again. At least take me with, for Christ’s sake. Fuck, you’re shaking.” He drew her into his arms.
She held onto him breathing hard. He slid his hand beneath the mass of her hair to the back of her neck and rubbed, which helped, but she struggled to process what she’d seen, how close the wreckers had gotten to her. Beyond that, what about the vision of herself lying naked, in the darkening, on a stone floor?
She couldn’t seem to calm the hell down.
Endelle turned to Alison. “Can you help us here?”
Alison moved in and placed her hand on Vela’s head. The most wonderful warmth and compassion flowed and she finally took a deep breath. In slow stages, Vela began to calm down until she pulled away from Samuel.
An odd vibration passed through her, a kind of knowing, as she shifted in Alison’s direction. Suddenly, she felt Alison, all that the woman experienced on a deep level as she applied her healing gift. She felt Alison’s fatigue, her level of anxiety for her young daughter’s safety, that she worried about her breh, Kerrick, all that time.
On instinct, Vela met Alison’s gaze and as though flipping an internal switch, she turned the same compassion back on Alison, as though she reflected the woman’s power. Healing warmth reversed, flowing out of Vela’s mind and heart into the woman whose hand still rested on Vela’s head.
Alison drew back, her brows lifted in surprise. She’d broken the contact and now stared at her hand. “What is that? What just happened?”
But the power still flowed, so she extended her palm toward Alison. “May I?”
Alison stared at Vela’s hand for a long moment, then finally nodded.
Vela placed her hand on Alison’s forehead and as more healing flowed, the powerful ascender breathed a deep sigh of relief and murmure
d, “Heaven.”
Vela kept up the process, wondering how this was even possible, how she could actually give back what Alison had given.
When the sensation dimmed, Vela drew her hand back.
“What the hell is going on?” Endelle barked. “We have a warrior to save. What did you just do to Alison?”
Vela stared at her own hand. “I’m not sure. I felt she was distressed and offered the same comfort she had just given me.”
“That was amazing.” Alison shook her head, her lips parted, brows raised. “And I actually feel at ease for the first time in a long time.”
“And that’s what you just gave me. So, thank you.”
Alison smiled, her blue, gold-rimmed eyes full of light. “I’m just amazed.”
“Okay, knock it off with all this touchy-feely shit.” Endelle’s voice rang through the room. “Vela, what the fuck happened when you went into the darkening just now? And by-the-way, you sent your man into a shouting fit. I’ve never heard so much profanity bounce around a room before, unless I’d launched it.”
Vela glanced between Endelle and Alison then back. She knew something significant had just happened, more than just giving comfort to Alison, but the scorpion queen demanded answers now.
Fully restored, Vela set her attention on Endelle. “The darkening called me to the Seers Palace. A Third ascender has taken Owen Stannett’s place. I believe he’s the one that held Samuel prisoner all that time, the one called Sharav.”
She gave a description of him and Samuel nodded. “That’s probably him.”
Endelle turned to Merl. “Does that sound right?”
He nodded, his brows drawn together.
“Fuck.” Endelle released a heavy sigh and after a moment addressed Thorne. “I think we have our answer about what happened, and how the three generals knew where and when to attack.”
“Seer information.” Thorne, making use of his deep, gravelly voice, released his own stream of profanity. “I should get over there. I’ll take a division if I have to and tear that goddamn place down stone-by-fucking-stone.”
“I think that’s a plan,” Endelle said. “But right now, let’s get Duncan out. If this Third asshole also orchestrated Duncan’s capture, then he might decide to speed up the execution.”