Born of Ashes (Guardians of Ascension #4)(41)
Author: Caris Roane

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, f**k,” 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.”