Page 117 of Gates of Rapture
The vampires moved on him as by great practice, each choosing a vein.One sank to his knees and struck one of the lower access points.Another moved behind him and struck one side of his neck.The other moved in and attacked the other side.The fourth grabbed an arm and punctured Stannett at the inside of his left elbow.
Stannett cried out repeatedly to Greaves, begging for a second chance.As his blood left his body, he continued to call for mercy.The sound of his pleading voice as he was drained of life was exactly what Greaves had needed to calm his rage and his frustration.
The death vampires were killing machines and did their job systematically.
Within two minutes, Stannett’s head slumped.
Another two minutes brought the death vampires rising from a very white body.Each made a fist to exhibit arms bulging with muscles.Their eyes were manic with pleasure.Dying blood was a glorious thing.
Feeling much calmer, Greaves sent the squad back to their bunker beneath Estrella Mountain, then folded to Geneva.Julianna welcomed him with open arms and gave a squeal of delight as he released his claw from his left hand.
Her screams further eased his soul so that by the time he had finished deep inside her, he knew what steps to take next.He focused first on Casimir.Because Greaves had been associated with him recently, he had a sense of the man.Using his voyeur window, he was able to locate him at the portal to Third Earth.
He knew that Casimir was making use of his own voyeur window to keep track of Leto, and right now he needed Casimir to focus on something else.
Greaves created his own little deception: Using a trick he’d been developing lately, he messed with Casimir’s window reception so that images of Leto would fade in and out.Casimir would assume it was his own difficulty, which hopefully would buy Greaves enough time to get the next job done.
And he would not wait until morning to do it.
***
Back at the palace, Endelle was having a great time.The hour was past ten, and the celebration of such a profound victory, without one casualty, was one of the most pleasurable moments of her life.Marcus and Havily already had the Web full of the stories of obsidian flame’s ability to do a mass fold, which also featured a video that showed the folding-away of the entire spectacle event, including swans and geese, followed by Greaves’s illegal bombing of the empty parade grounds.
Endelle had asked that the video be kept on a loop so that at any time she could look over her shoulder at the monitor and laugh.
Fighting a battle without a single loss, and at the same time bringing over to her side half of Greaves’s army—well, damn, she was in a state of bliss.
She had her own bottle of Silver Patrón and filled her shot glass to the rim for about the tenth time.She stood up and lifted it high.“This toast is for Grace, for coming back to us, for taking her place as obsidian flame, for coming up with the most awesome strategy ever, and mostly for having the courage to enter my own twisted soul and pluck my mass-folding ability right out of what she says is a blue flame lock, whatever the fuck that is.To Grace.”
All her warriors were present, all nine WhatBees.She’d freed up the rest of them from Borderland duty so that she could celebrate with her elite Warriors of the Blood, the men who had kept Second Earth safe for all these centuries.
The men, as well as the women bonded to Kerrick, Marcus, Medichi, Jean-Pierre, and Thorne, all gained their feet and held up a variety of glasses in Grace’s direction.The woman blushed at all the praise.
“To Grace” resounded to the top of the dining hall rotunda, then back again.
The sound, made big because of so many masculine voices, pleased Endelle’s soul.
She sipped her tequila, smiling as she drank.Goddam but she felt good.She couldn’t remember the last time she’d felt this fantastic, this free, this satisfied, and sex hadn’t been involved at all.But this had been as good as a good lay, flying like that, knowing she could pose for the cameras and show off her costume, heading up her army, leading obsidian flame.Yeah, damn good.
But that fold!Especially while in full-mount and not one feather out of place once she hit the ground.Shit, that had been something else.The power had rolled along the parade route starting at the back, like an all-encompassing wind that passed through her body yet caught her up at the same time, and shunting her in a quick ride through nether-space.Her wings had held—another miracle provided by obsidian flame.No way in hell would she try it on her own.Wings could get thoroughly trashed during a fold, and that kind of destruction would hurt like a motherfucker.
She glanced at Grace.The woman had truly surprised her in about every way possible.That she’d left the Creator’s Convent in Prescott Two to shack up with Casimir-the-Hedonist on Fourth Earth had been one of the shockers of the century.But that she’d come back so changed was another shocker, wearing loose clothing, lots of makeup, and her hair curled.A lot of her restraint was just gone.Maybe Casimir had done that for her, or maybe being with Beatrice, or maybe it was thebreh-hedden.
So Grace was back, the third leg of a now über-powerful obsidian triad, and all cuddled up with Leto.Endelle had extended her hearing a couple of times, because eavesdropping was just plain fun.Grace kept whispering to Leto that she wanted him to “go beast.”Endelle was pretty sure she knew what that meant, and if she’d been in Grace’s shoes, she would have done the same thing.
She sipped her tequila, then laughed again, no less so when Leto called out to Thorne, “Hey, how about having Jeannie fold us back to my cabin.”
Thorne frowned slightly.“The cabin in Seattle?”
“Yes,” Leto said.“The colony is secure, and I’m going to create my own dome of mist over my property.”He glanced at Medichi and smiled.“Besides, I think the villa will be crowded tonight.”
Medichi laughed.“Very crowded.”He leaned close to Parisa and kissed her full on the lips.
Thorne opened his mouth, probably to argue with Leto’s request some more, but Leto already had his tongue in Grace’s mouth again.
Endelle met Thorne’s gaze, but she understood the need for some alone time.“I’ll add my own dome of mist over the cabin.”She then called out to Jeannie and gave the order.
Leto and Grace vanished.
