Wings of Fire (Guardians of Ascension #3)(19)
Author: Caris Roane

For no reason at all, her head began to hurt.

***

From the slatted blinds within his house, Rith stared at the woman now risen from her prone position on the lawn. He had hoped she would die, but he’d had no such good fortune.

The woman lived.

And Greaves had accomplished what he’d set out to accomplish—he’d forged a mind-link with her. He’d also told Rith that he was to allow the woman to leave.

Rith found it hard to blink. He had received more prophecies that the woman would escape, but as always he believed the Seers existed to help him shape the future, not simply to predict it.

He didn’t know the method yet, but he knew this woman would be dead long before she had a chance to leave his home.

Death is but a journey.

Yet to return from the brink of the grave

Is a powerful call to service, to life, to love.

—Collected Proverbs, Beatrice of Fourth

Chapter 5

Medichi’s phone buzzed. He was at the north end of the White Tanks. Jeannie had just done cleanup on five, five, f**king death vampires—and the night was young.

He slid his slim warrior phone from the pocket of his battle kilt. Tonight he was mounting his wings and learning to battle while in the air. It was only nine thirty, and this last squadron had about done him in. He’d flown for centuries, but not while battling, and right now muscles burned that he didn’t even know he had.

He thumbed his phone. “Hey, Jeannie.”

“Endelle patching through.” The line went dead. Jeannie didn’t even greet him, which meant the scorpion queen was in a mood.

“Medichi,” Endelle snapped. “Get your f**king ass over to my office pronto.”

“I’m alone at the White Tanks Borderland, Mortal Earth, and I can feel the air cooling down. You know what that means. I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

“I mean now, ass**le,” she shouted into the phone. “Thorne’s sending Santiago to take your place.”

“I said—” He wasn’t going to argue with her so he thumbed his phone. He might not have been thinking clearly, though, because in some part of his fatigued, stressed mind he realized he might have just hung up on the ruler of Second Earth.

Shiiiit.

But he had another problem right now. The air grew arctic, a sure sign a few pretty-boys were on the way, floating down through the dimensional Trough like Mary-fucking-Poppins.

His phone buzzed again. He ignored it. He wasn’t leaving the Borderland until Santiago arrived, and he sure as hell wasn’t letting Santiago arrive with death vampires already on the ground.

He held his sword at the ready but didn’t mount his wings. He kept his gaze fixed on the night sky overhead. Hooray for preternatural night vision. And there they were, dim shapes at first, clearer as each second passed.

The air moved next to him. He turned, ready for a different kind of attack if necessary, but Santiago materialized, his eyes glittering, his sword held in exactly the same position as Medichi’s, body crouched.

Medichi nodded.

Santiago smiled then looked up. “I am feeling a slight chill in the air. What about you, hermano?”

Medichi turned back to the sky. There were only four riding down the Trough. “You got this?”

“Is that an insult, amigo?”

Medichi laughed. “Fuck off.” He lifted his arm and dematerialized, but not without catching sight of Santiago’s middle finger as he vanished.

He arrived in the middle of Endelle’s office to face a screaming woman.

“You hung up on me! You hung up on me! You hung up on me?”

She combined the last phrase with telepathy and split-resonance and it f**king hurt. He almost dropped to his knees. Holy shit. He felt like his brain was about to explode and only barely kept his balance.

He saw stars, then something passed in front of him, creating streams of air. He stepped back automatically, getting out of the way, until he bumped against the wall by the door. Shit, Endelle was in one wild state. She was in full-mount, her wings shifted color constantly like a kaleidoscope gone awry, and she left a trail of fireworks behind her in red, all in red, as she raced from one wall to the next. She wore some kind of dress made up of what must have been hundreds of peacock feathers trimmed around the “eye.” What with the fireworks, the wind, and all the “eyes,” she looked like a one-woman spectacle event.

Sure, he’d hung up on her, but she couldn’t be that pissed about a hang-up. Maybe he needed to explain. “I wasn’t about to leave Santiago with four death vampires on the ground while he was still in dematerialization mode. He could have been killed.”

“I don’t think she’s upset about the hang-up, Warrior Medichi.”

At these words, Endelle slowed her movements and actually stopped in front of her desk. She glared in the direction of the west wall.

Only then did Medichi realize he wasn’t the only man in the room, if you could call what was there a man. His gaze followed Endelle’s to the never-used fireplace on the west wall.

Owen Stannett.

Holy shit.

High Administrator of the Superstition Mountain Seers Fortress, manipulator of COPASS, law unto himself, lying bastard, enemy to Endelle.

Owen. Fucking. Stannett.

He had all but robbed Endelle of Seer prophecies, which provided critical foreknowledge of the war. The Superstition Fortress was the most powerful in the word, probably because of its proximity to the five major dimensional access points on Second Earth. Every continent had at least one access point, but the North American continent had five, in the desert Southwest, all close to the Metro Phoenix area. A lot of power was focused in this part of the world.

Stannett was one of the main reasons Endelle and her administration were so f**king hamstrung in the fight against Greaves. The bastard had wined and dined COPASS to the point that he’d gotten several critical laws passed, one of which meant that Endelle could not cross the threshold of the Seers Fortress except by express invitation from its High Administrator. So guess who never got invited?

That Stannett had then constricted the flow of information came as no surprise, but every attempt to get the law repealed had failed. The committee insisted there needed to be a clear separation between the sanctity of Seer devotion and the activities of the State.

Naturally, naturally, Greaves had built his own powerful network throughout the world by securing the most talented Seers from those Territories aligned with him and settling them into the Fortresses at Mumbai, Johannesburg, and Bogotá.