Page 143 of Gates of Rapture
When Greaves understood that he would be unable to bring his force through the now healed portal, he knew that his last chance at winning this war without invoking his virus-based morphing ability had just disappeared.
He folded back to Estrella.
All his generals and aides turned toward him, waiting.For a long moment, he couldn’t speak the words.He was stunned at what had just happened.
Finally, he told his staff the truth.The elevated spirits began to dissipate, just like his own.He would change that in a moment, but even he needed time to digest the ugly reality that he would not have his Third Earth force with him today.
At last, he waved a hand over his body.He changed from his elegant Hugo Boss suit into very basic black sweatpants and nothing more.
His generals backed up.He could see the shock, even the disapproval on their faces, so of course he had to give them a small demonstration of things to come.He let his claw emerge.
He smiled as the same group took another step back.
“Don’t worry, my friends.All is not lost.”
He then closed his eyes, and oiled up his body, top to bottom, in order to facilitate the coming change.
“I want a formal presentation at once,” he ordered.
His generals fell into line, each now restored to composure, eyes intense and focused on him.
“All begins and ends here,”he said, his voice filling the space with a faint resonance, nothing to harm his men this time but sufficient to build determination within each soul.
He glanced from face to face, warriors all, each having given himself fully to the Coming Order.
Greaves was not a man of sentiment, but he moved forward and went from man to man, cupping each at the back of the neck with his palm.No words were spoken as he passed down the line.
When he was done, he stood back and said simply, “You have your orders.”
The line broke as each man moved to his station in the room to sit before a computer screen and to monitor the ranks under his command.If so moved during events at White Lake, he would order an outright attack.
As it stood, however, mobilizing the entire army served no purpose since Leto had stolen half his force.For the moment, Greaves had lost the military advantage he’d worked so diligently to create, but he saw no sense in expending warriors when he might have need of them later.If during the coming battle he actually failed, he would fold to his Geneva stronghold, recover, then rebuild.
He had made his decision about how he would morph during the coming battle.He would hold nothing back.By the rules of war, approved by COPASS, both he and Endelle could do their worst.
And so he would.
He was therefore taking a small contingent to White Lake, not even a full regiment, just five hundred seasoned death vampires.They were an exquisite force of pretty-boys, all with blue-tinged skin and glossy black feathers when in flight.His force, if nothing else, would be a beautiful, terrifying sight to behold.
With him, he also had his diminished squad of three remaining Third Earth death vampires from the original lot he had snuck through the breach in the portal over the past six months.The majority had already died—some at the hands of Thorne five months ago in Moscow Two, and the rest more recently because of Casimir and Leto’s combined efforts.
When an aide called out that the mist from White Lake had just disappeared, Greaves bid his generals to await his orders, then folded to his landing platform at the mouth of the vast Estrella Mountain underground barracks.His death vampires stood in formation, lovely to behold in black kilts and maroon weapons harnesses.He’d ordered his own form of thecadroen,so that his men presented a uniform appearance.
He smiled.Using a form of mass telepathy, he communicated in a firm mental voice,Today we vanquish our enemy.
As one, each right fist pumped the air and a deafening battle cry filled the cavern.
***
Endelle stood on the bank of White Lake, her mist withdrawn.She felt deeply sobered by watching Alison fulfill a destiny that Alison had predicted at the time of her ascension.Obsidian flame, Leto, Thorne, Kerrick, and Alison flew toward her, and landed one after the other in an arc in front of her.
Each ascender was equally sobered, as though in some mystical way, they knew as a group that what happened next would be pivotal.
By prior agreement, she folded everyone to the Apache Junction Two landing platforms.Once down the ramp, she turned, let the group gather around her once more, and ordered obsidian flame to use Marguerite’s Seer ability to have a look at White Lake.
Fiona, Marguerite, and Grace faced one another.Endelle could feel the power flow from deep in the earth.Thorne stood near them, ready to anchor all that power as needed.
Endelle knew the moment when Marguerite entered the future streams; it was as though a switch clicked.The same switch got flipped again as Marguerite withdrew.But her face was pinched, and her eyes wide, as she met Endelle’s gaze.
