Wings of Fire (Guardians of Ascension #3)(22)
Author: Caris Roane

Stannett nodded. “Yes. Precisely.” He lifted his arm and before any of them could press for more information, he was gone.

Medichi didn’t wait. He closed his eyes and felt the man’s trace, the line of power that followed after him. He focused on the stream of red and black, Stannett’s unique signature, and dematerialized in pursuit.

But he hit some kind of metaphysical wall and woke up in Endelle’s office on his back staring up at Thorne and Endelle. Shit, how long had he been out? “What happened?” he asked.

Endelle made a disgusted wet sound in her throat and turned away from him.

Thorne offered him a hand. “What made you think you could trace after Stannett? He’s almost as powerful as Greaves.”

Medichi took the proffered hand. He saw stars as he gained his feet. He took deep breaths. Oh, shit. The future streams had predicted not just Parisa’s death but dire consequences for Second Earth if she died. He had to find her, but what more could he do? It was all up to either Central’s grid, or right now the grid at Militia HQ. Would they find her in time?

Endelle stared out the window that overlooked the east desert, which stretched for miles. The Superstition Seers Fortress lay some sixty miles in the same direction, to the place also known as Thunder God Mountain. “What a poser,” she muttered. “Although, I did like some of that embroidery, especially the yellow flowers.”

As Medichi recovered from his ill-advised pursuit, his mind settled into a loop: Battle coming, must find Parisa, battle, Parisa. “I have to find Parisa,” he said. Had he spoken the words aloud?

Thorne clapped his hand on Medichi’s shoulder. “We’ve got the grid burning juice at Militia HQ. Hang tough. We’ll find her. We’ll bring her home.”

Medichi met Thorne’s red-rimmed eyes and saw reflected what Medichi felt, panic laced with despair. Shit, what more could they do to find her? What if Parisa was killed before he could get to her?

Thorne squeezed. “The best thing you can do is get back to the White Tanks. Burma’s too big a place for any of us to hunt mile by mile for a shielded anomaly. Head over to the Borderland and take care of business. This is what we can do right now. This is what we can control. Okay?”

“Yeah.” Fighting would be best. He’d go mad if he had to sit around for hours with nothing to do but wait for some inexplicable blip.

“One more thing, keep a lid on this Seer information for now, until Endelle and I and maybe Colonel Seriffe can work out a strategy, okay?”

“You don’t want the brothers knowing?”

“Not yet.” Thorne scowled. “Got it?”

Medichi didn’t exactly agree with the decision but yeah, right now his job was focused more on the keep-Parisa-safe part of the model rather than oh-God-Armageddon-is-coming.

Okay. One f**king problem at a time. Right now that meant he needed to work to keep death vampires from reaching Mortal Earth.

He folded back to the White Tanks.

***

The hour was nine at night in Burma, which meant seven thirty in the morning in Phoenix. Almost time for Antony.

Parisa had been opening her voyeur’s window every fifteen minutes, but she focused her efforts on just his bedroom. If she voyeured Antony himself, she was afraid she’d find him battling death vampires—and she really didn’t want those images in her head. She’d made the mistake only once during the early part of her captivity. Once had been enough.

The Burmese slaves were outside her room. Every once in a while she’d hear a cough or a shifting on a mat.

She pushed the covers back and rubbed her arms. Her nerves had taken on a life of their own and seemed to climb up her arms, then back down, then up and down. She had been on edge all day, ever since Greaves’s visit. Something wasn’t right, and Rith still followed her with cold eyes. She shuddered thinking about it.

Her thoughts once more turned to Fiona, as they often had throughout the day. Fiona had begged for her help—but what could Parisa do when she was just as much a prisoner in Rith’s home as Fiona was?

She rubbed her arms again trying to soothe her fiery nerves.

Yeah, what could she do?

***

Fiona rarely fought the bindings, but tonight she couldn’t help it. She didn’t care how many times the female assistant, the one with the cruel black eyes, slapped her and hit her. She didn’t want to give her blood one more time. She didn’t want to die again. She didn’t want to come back from the dead again.

She fought until she felt a sharp prick deep into the muscle of her upper arm. She turned to her left and watched the young male assistant depress the plunger on a syringe. She blinked up at him. He was the one new to the job, the one who perspired into his surgical mask. She’d heard him vomiting more than once. Good.

Except … she heard their words now as from a great distance, and though she tried to swing her arms away from their grappling hands, she couldn’t. She felt her arms strapped down hard to the table. She heard the evil woman laugh like a monster, chortling deep and long. She felt the prick on the inside of her right elbow, then the left side.

They would drain her from the right, then start refilling her from the left. Her eyes closed. She felt so sleepy. Maybe this was a good thing, a good way to die. She even smiled.

The next thing she knew she stood in a strange place and it was night, although there seemed to be light coming from somewhere. She looked around. She didn’t know where she was. She wore the usual, a tank top and pajama bottoms, nothing else, not even shoes, never shoes. How could a slave escape without shoes?

A man sat on a bench, a rather smallish man with gray hair. He cooed low in his throat and tossed sunflower seeds to a group of birds clustered around his feet. Pigeons. Black ones, white ones, brown ones, and every mix between. She wrinkled her nose. She’d never cared for pigeons. They nested in every crook and corner of every city in the world.

“You must go back, Fiona.”

The man spoke. He lifted his eyes to her. They were ancient eyes, not lined exactly but surely he had seen a lot of life, much more than her 125 years.

“I’m going home this time,” she said. How surprised she was by the strength in her voice, the determination. “Today is my daughter’s birthday. She would have been one hundred and seven. Yes, I know. She was mortal and would be long since buried in the earth, but don’t you see”—she felt herself smile—“there is nothing for me here. And I’m tired, so very tired. Yes, I want to go home.”