Page 12 of Gates of Rapture (The Guardians of Ascension #6)
Change is a mirror with many facets,
Always reflecting the soul’s long journey.
— Collected Proverbs, Beatrice of Fourth
Greaves sat at the head of his Geneva Round Table, in the throne-like chair he had designed to place him above any who would come to serve the Coming Order.
The table represented his dreams of one day ruling Second Earth.
He put his finger to his lips and plucked.
He could feel the frown between his brows.
Earlier, he had felt the cosmic ripple indicating that Grace Albion, the blue variety of obsidian flame, had returned to the lower dimensions.
On the heels of this unwelcome sensation came the reports from his Seers Fortresses that had shrunk his testicles.
Essentially, a decisive battle was coming.
Thorne’s army, supported by the obsidian flame triad, would be mobilizing soon.
But that was all the reports had said—not when there would be a battle, or who the victor would be.
He sighed heavily, his gaze drifting over the table, back and forth.
He had not gathered an assembly of High Administrators here in almost two years, from the time that Alison Wells had ascended to Second Earth and bonded with Warrior Kerrick.
Her ascension had been the beginning of a long nightmare where his plans were concerned.
Since her arrival, even more powerful women had risen to become bonded with several of the über-powerful Warriors of the Blood, ultimately changing the political landscape and forcing Greaves to shift his strategies again and again.
At present, the round table was empty and would remain so until the war was won. But for the first time in his long life, he knew that all his glorious dreams, including an administration that would meet here in Geneva and run the Coming Order, were in jeopardy.
He leaned an elbow on the well-padded arm of his chair and tugged once more at his lower lip.
Grace had finally returned from her little sojourn on Fourth, studying at his mother’s knee while romping in Casimir’s bed. His mother would have liked Grace’s spiritual inclinations, and Casimir would have made liberal use of her body since apparently he had been her breh .
Now she was back, having left both Beatrice and Casimir behind.
Though he prided himself on his generally positive attitude, he couldn’t help but feel morbid about her return. In point of fact, he had been dreading this moment for one simple reason: He would now have to deal with obsidian flame, because Grace would complete the triad.
The truth was that Greaves simply didn’t know what obsidian flame would be capable of once it launched.
Two of the pieces were already in place.
Fiona Gaines, now breh to Warrior Jean-Pierre, was the gold variety, and Marguerite Dresner, breh to Thorne, was the red variety.
Add blue, as in Grace, and who knew what level of power the three women could achieve.
It was even rumored that Thorne, himself, was obsidian flame, but Greaves didn’t know what his role was, or possibly could be.
So the whole thing was just one giant assfuck waiting to happen.
Five months ago when Grace had taken off with Casimir, she had disappeared from the future streams, which had then forced Greaves into a holding pattern.
Unable to learn when she was most likely to return, he knew that any attempt to take over Second Earth risked the possibility that she could show up, engage with obsidian flame, and destroy his plans.
However, he still had the advantage over Endelle in terms of the size of his army.
At two million strong, thanks to Leto, he could subdue Endelle’s forces any day of the week.
In addition, he had some sway with COPASS, since at least a third of the members were addicted to dying blood.
It wasn’t a perfect situation, but he could frequently manipulate international politics to side with him.
On the other hand, Endelle still had the majority of territories aligned with her. Of course, she was now losing them at a rate of one a week because Greaves had been impressing the High Administrators with his army as well as offering all sorts of incentives to align with the Coming Order.
But Grace was back, and he would have to start dealing with her.
She and Leto would be his primary targets over the next few days.
His secondary object was to destroy the hidden colony network on Mortal Earth.
His Seers Fortresses had relayed a constant stream of prophetic information about that network, which indicated Leto had built up a formidable army among what turned out to be a thousand hidden colonies worldwide on Mortal Earth.
According to Seer information some of those colonies had over ten thousand residents.
But finding the colonies had been a bitch. However, with the first location mapped and his teams reporting great success with his transmitter concept, he knew that within days all of the colonies would be visible on his electronic grid.
For that reason alone—that the hidden colony network was nearly in his grasp—the timing of Grace’s return frustrated the hell out of him.
Once he knew the exact locations of each colony, he had planned on destroying them one by one and thereby the army that Leto had built within the Militia Warrior population of each colony.
After each community was brought under his control, he would then extract what he believed was a vast wealth of Seers and force them into his various Seers Fortresses.
He dared even the powerful Marguerite to best him then.
But now Grace was back, which would no doubt put obsidian flame into play. The timing was an absolute bitch.
He closed his eyes and calmed his spirit. He would need to keep a cool head to face the challenges of the next few days and weeks. He developed a new mantra: Stay focused, capture and eradicate Grace, destroy the hidden colonies.
As he rose from his chair, he decided it was time to put to work his most powerful Seer: Owen Stannett.
He focused on Stannett and found him in his private meditation room, where he knew the pervert liked to cruise the future streams and do his own form of porn viewing: real couples, future time.
He gave him a mental nudge as a warning, waited a few seconds, then simply folded from Geneva Two all the way to the inner depths of the Illinois Two Seers Fortress.
He found Stannett on his chaise longue, zipping up his pants and rising to a sitting position. “Master,” Stannett said, looking up at him. His cheeks were flushed as he patted the immaculately coiffed wave alongside his head.
“Enjoying yourself I see.”
At that, Stannett smiled. “Always, but to what do I owe the honor of your visit?” He turned and slid his legs over the side of the chaise.
“Well, my friend, if you had not been so busy beneath your leathers, you might have noticed a slight wavering in the fabric of space and time, a rumbling as it were in the order of the entire universe.”
Stannett frowned.
“Grace has returned.”
His eyes went wide. “Well, finally. What do you intend to do?”
“To find her and separate her from the herd if I can. Then I’ll give her to one of my Third Earth death vampires as a snack.”
Stannett eyed him carefully. “I’ve always wondered how you managed to bring Third Earth death vampires down here to Second Earth when the portal to Third has been closed all this time.”
At that, Greaves smiled. He had his own secrets, and since he didn’t really trust Stannett, he said, “I have many powers, my friend.”
Stannett chuckled. “Well, I do like the idea of giving Grace to your vampires to feed on.”
Stannett was not a squeamish vampire, but then a man who had raped his own Seers when he was the High Administrator of the Superstition Mountain Seers Fortress did not have the loftiest morals.
“I want you to recommence your experiments harnessing yourself to six Seers. I must have pure vision .”
“But, master, you know the difficulty. The Seers keep dying.”
“I no longer care. I shall have the best Seers from my Mumbai, Johannesburg, and Bogotá Fortresses shipped here as needed. From all your experiments over the past several months, we both know that a more powerful Seer has a greater chance of surviving the process. The Coming Order is in grave danger because of obsidian flame and because of the colonial militia. Grace completes the triad, as you well know. I must have the most perfect visions of the progress of the triad over the coming days. Are you still unable to track any of the Warriors of the Blood?”
“Marguerite guards them all from me while in the future streams. She has great power. Greater than mine.”
“But I know that you have the power to block her in the future streams as well, right?”
Stannett nodded.
“Then do so going forward. But right now, I’d like a little information.
” He directed Stannett to recline once more on his chaise longue.
“I want you to enter the future streams and as you do, I will join my mind with yours so that I can see what you see. I want you to focus on Grace. At the very least, I want to know where she has gone, though I already suspect she is with Leto at the Seattle Colony.”
Stannett stretched out once more, folded his hands over his stomach, and closed his eyes.
Greaves put his hand on Stannett’s forehead and slipped within.
He ignored the chaos that came at him from all quarters, all that Stannett was as an ascended vampire.
He joined his mind to Stannett’s as the Seer began to focus.
He had done this a handful of times over the centuries so he knew what to expect.
But he was still surprised at the beauty of the future stream ribbons that flowed endlessly away from the eye and stretched in an infinite range of colors.
Stannett centered his mind on Grace, and a lot of the chaos disappeared.