Gates of Rapture (Guardians of Ascension #6)(18)
Author: Caris Roane

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  p**n  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.

The line of ribbons began to move rapidly for several seconds, then slowed until an iridescent blue ribbon of light appeared, bearing a central stream of red and gold. Greaves could feel that the ribbon belonged to Grace.

Stannett picked up Grace’s ribbon again and felt his way into the immediate future. How curious that Greaves could tell that what he saw would happen this very evening. Though he had not been to the Seattle hidden colony, he could sense the location. How absurdly quaint. Beyond the rows of cottage-like homes, each with attached vegetable gardens, was a massive setup like a medieval fair with canvas booths. Opposite the booths was an oval track set up for runners with lanes. In the center of the racetrack were all sorts of jumbles of logs and blocks and old used tires, like you’d find in army training camps. This his Seers had prophesied; he recognized the warrior games.