Born of Ashes

She smiled. Sister-bitch. Nice.

There was another chapel, much smaller, and made of gold and pearl. Marguerite had been there more than once, having snuck in. The benches were padded with soft mossy green velvet. No doubt Sister Quena kept the chapel for her private use, the spiritual narcissist that she was.

The High Administrator of the Convent stood at the pulpit to the right of the glowing circle and read from a book of prayers she had written at least a thousand years ago. For a woman who believed that humility was the highest virtue, she was incessantly vain about her spirituality. Imagine reciting from a self-published book of prayers rather than any of a hundred works written by theologians through the ages. Even the Bible or the Qur’an would have made better sense.

The drugs still worked in her system, and her eyes grew heavy. She slid her hands up the bell sleeves of her robe and as Sister Quena droned on, she drifted into slumber.

She was nudged awake by Grace.

A little shot of adrenaline brought her out of the half-drugged sleep. Oh, shit, she was headed for solitary again for sure, especially since Sister Quena now stood at the end of Marguerite’s row, glaring at her across the trembling forms of five devotiates, each of whom had bowed her head—probably in deep supplication that she wouldn’t get caught in the cross fire.

“You will come with me, Sister Marguerite. Now.”

Grace grabbed her before she rose and gave her arm a squeeze. She whispered low, “Just once, bide your tongue, my sister.”

Marguerite whispered a very soft, “Fuck off.” But Grace wasn’t offended, which was why Marguerite loved her. When Grace turned her face away, the hint of a smile was the last thing Marguerite saw as she gained her feet.

Sister Quena turned up the aisle that led to the narthex or, in Marguerite’s view, the shithole of a foyer. To the right of the narthex was the long passage back to the cold sleeping cells; to the left were the administrative offices and sanctuary rooms used for prayer. Straight ahead lay the underground solitary confinement chambers.

Marguerite had expected to go forward to suffer another round of solitary, so she was surprised when Sister Quena turned to the left. Maybe all sister-bitch meant to do was give her a good dressing-down then send her to her cell for the night. But when the hell had Marguerite ever gotten off that lightly?

Something wasn’t right.

Then she caught the smell of leather, and she almost made a run for it. But there wasn’t anything she could do. She wore that damn ankle guard and could be found through GPS, and she still couldn’t fold out of the building. She’d tried to escape by physically leaving the place, but Sister Quena had sent one fine pack of dogs to hunt her down. She’d had to heal from thirteen bites, five of them on her ass after that little experiment. Escape on foot? Nooooo, thank you.

So she heaved a familiar sigh and followed her high-and-mightiness to the third sanctuary room on the right and wasn’t surprised when the good sister held the door for her, then slammed it shut.

“Well, fuck,” she said, facing Owen Stannett with her shoulders back. “Look what the cat dragged in.”

“And a good evening to you, Sister Marguerite.”

“Cut the shit, Owen. I’m no more a sister than you are fit to run the Superstition Fortress.”

Owen didn’t flinch. He merely smiled and sat down in a ladder-back chair provided for him. “I see you are your usual charming self.” He gestured to the slatted wood lounge.

Marguerite looked at it and something inside her began to crumble. She didn’t want to do this again, to be caught one more time in the middle of the future streams. She hated her gift, she hated Stannett, and she hated this godforsaken Convent.

More than anything in life she wanted her freedom. She wanted to live in the open, to live as she pleased, and especially she wanted to drive a car. Thorne had shared the experience with her through a really terrific mind-dive; she’d never driven a car otherwise. So, yeah, she wanted to drive a convertible along a straight stretch of highway for hundreds of miles, with the wind in her hair, and the music on as high as it would go without busting out the speakers. She wanted to drive and drive and not look back, never look back, just move forward and plan a different kind of life, preferably in one of the rogue vampire colonies on Mortal Earth.

She’d heard about them, of course, places where ascender misfits could create a new life, separate from all this Second Earth bullshit called war and domination and death and servitude.

Fuck all of that!

“Please, do make yourself comfortable. I understand you were sedated earlier. I wouldn’t want to add to your distress by having to force you to do what must be done.”

“Always the gentleman, Owen. You must be so proud of yourself.”

“Marguerite, you’ve always misunderstood me. This is about survival and it always has been.”

At that she looked at him and frowned. “You’re not usually so forthcoming or philosophical. Some bug climbed up your ass today?”

“Did I ever tell you just how much you remind me of our fearless leader, of Madame Endelle?”

At that Marguerite laughed, but her mind sloshed back and forth. “Only about every other visit.”

Shit, she was just too wigged out to put up much of a fight. Usually she got in a few scratches before Owen strapped on his version of preternatural bindings and held her to the wooden chaise. At least he’d never tried to rape her. She’d give him that, the bastard.

She stretched out and put her arms over her head, crossing her wrists. “What will it be tonight, Stanny? You want me to see if you get to win the Mortal Earth Powerball anytime soon?” It was a little joke, of course, since the future streams didn’t exactly work that way.

“I want you to pick up your ribbon tonight, Marguerite, and tell me what you see?”

At that, she turned to look at him. She frowned. “You’ve never had me do that.”

“Haven’t you been curious?”

“No. I tried it once decades ago, then I ended up here, exactly as I foresaw. You can imagine how I’ve felt ever since. So, no, I don’t want to know the future. I’ve always thought of my gift as some sick joke the universe was playing on me.”

He clucked his tongue. “And your gift is beyond anything I’ve ever seen, which I would have to agree makes this some kind of terrible joke. Do you know how much I would give to possess your gift? Half my kingdom.”

“Then you could take over the world.”

He sighed, his lips pinched inward. Finally, he said, “I’ve never wanted to rule the world. Again, this is about survival and being able to call the shots in my own life.”

At that she lowered her arms and leaned up on her elbows. “Then surely you can understand how I feel. I’ve been in this dump for a century with no way out. Why don’t you have compassion on me, remove this ankle guard, and let me slip out the side door.”

He folded his arms over his chest. “Why should I do for you what no one has had the slightest interest, ever, in doing for me? Your job is to take care of Marguerite. Mine is to make sure Owen Stannett has the life and future he wants.”

“Fine.” She lay back down. The funny thing was, she kind of agreed with Stanny on this one. Besides, her head had begun to ache.

She relaxed her mind and drew in a deep breath. She didn’t so much find the future streams as fall into them. Her Seer power was enormous, just as Stannett said.

All the ribbons of light were spread out in front of her in a glorious array of shimmering color. If she hadn’t despised the process so much, she would have enjoyed the light show.

Still, she shivered at the thought that today, after all this time, she was going to lift the skirts of her own future.

Whatever.

She focused on herself and a ribbon lifted up a few inches, shimmering in a color she had not seen in over a century—the most beautiful shade of cherry red. At exactly the same moment, she felt Stannett’s presence as he mentally joined her, the perverted voyeur.

In previous years, she would pick up the future stream ribbons, as if by hand, then examine them. Lately, however, she’d made more of a game of it and dove within. The funny thing was, when she entered the future streams, she also saw the past events of the person belonging to the light ribbon. How strange this time, to see flashes of her own life wink at her: quick-moving images of Thorne and Sister Quena, of Grace, of her really wretched parents who visited her once a decade, of her life before her internment, full of men, lots of wonderful men. Oh, yeah, good times.

Then the present arrived and she saw herself reclining on the slatted wooden chaise.

Suddenly the future rushed at her, the deep cherry swirling over her and around like a great wind.

The wind caught her up from beneath her and forced her into the air higher and higher, a warm wind. No, a hot wind.

She glanced down. Not wind at all, but fire, black at the base and red flames rising. She knew the colors well, two of her favorites, red and black. She still moved up, into the air. She shifted her gaze in front of her and saw a vast swirl of blue deep into the sky, but she didn’t know what it was. On and on the black and red flames pushed her, catapulting her into the swirling blue vortex.

But the air was thin and she couldn’t breathe. The vortex sucked her up and up. She flailed in the air with no wings to mount, no levitation to keep her up, no way to even fold out of the terrifying event.

She screamed and screamed, crying out for help, but no help came.

When her lungs failed her, she passed out.

She awoke some time later, in her cell, strapped on top of her comforter, unable to move. How clever of sister-bitch. Endelle might have given her the comforter, but Sister Quena still made it impossible for Marguerite to be warm.

She stared up at the ceiling, her mind caught up in the strange future vision. She couldn’t imagine Stannett gaining anything from what he might have witnessed.

Then she heard the words whispered through her mind, obsidian flame.

* * *

Jean-Pierre savored these few minutes with Fiona, watching her work so diligently with Alison to throw hand-blasts that she somehow channeled through Alison. After much bickering, the room’s security system had been disconnected and Seriffe had given his permission for the fireworks to continue.