Endelle wasn’t a weeper, but as she lay on the floor, goddam tears streamed from her eyes and into her hair.
It took her a long time to realize that Merl knelt beside her and held her right hand in both of his.
When she finally shifted to look at him, he was frowning. “What happened?” he asked. He reached down and wiped at the tears on her face. “Did you have a vision?”
“Yes.”
“What did you see?”
All she could do for a long moment was shake her head slowly back and forth. “I had a fucking vision of our world and it’s not good. In fact, I don’t think it could be worse.”
He sighed heavily. “We’re in trouble then.”
The man who smiled so easily, who usually had a French martini in one hand and a lit cigarette in the other, had never looked more somber.
She remained where she was, still on the floor and stretched out prone. “I thought when I defeated Greaves, we’d start rolling the war back. But that’s not the case. In fact, I’m now understanding why the war has worsened. The three generals are being helped.”
“Let me guess; Chustaffus has his hand in the pie.”
“Both fists.”
“Do you have visions often?” he asked.
“Never. But this one punched into my head and I couldn’t have stopped it if I wanted to. But the hell if I know what to do.”
“It must have come for a reason.”
She got stuck on the early image of Luken plummeting to earth. She wished like hell Braulio was here, the man she tried to stay chaste for. He would know how to dissect the vision and he would offer an interpretation that would comfort her.
She reached out to him telepathically, but no response returned. The brief time she’d had with Braulio before and following the battle with Greaves had ended.
Right now, she wanted some kind of reassurance that what she’d just seen wouldn’t befall her world, that there was something she could do to stop these events from crashing on her, on Luken, on the world she held in the palm of her hands.
She wasn’t given to much deep feeling. She believed being a ruler didn’t allow her to be maudlin or nostalgic on any level. She had to keep her head clear and make tough decisions that often meant some of her people would die.
But right now, a measure of grief engulfed that shook her to her soul.
And as Merl helped her to her feet, her spirits sagged within. She rarely felt despondent, believing any kind of despair to be an unacceptable weakness, but right now she hurt. So she excused herself and went into the bathroom, shutting Merl out.
She had to think and make quick sense of what she had just witnessed.
She chose in that moment to see it as a warning, and that what had begun with Duncan’s kidnapping and his rescue by Samuel and Vela, as well as his current trance, had been a foreshadowing of things to come if she didn’t take heed.
And why had Chustaffus asked about Duncan? Why was his death critical to the madman’s plans?
Then Duncan had appeared and told her what she needed to do.
Never, in her five-thousand years of rule, had she been so close to losing Second Earth, especially now that Chustaffus supported the three generals.
But one thing she did understand; Duncan was the key at least for now. Everything pointed to him, including his inexplicable trance. But why had a mere Militia Warrior suddenly become so important?
Jeannie’s voice sounded through the small room. “Madame Endelle, sorry to bother you, but I have an urgent message from Apache Junction Two.”
Dear Creator, what now? “Yes?”
Jeannie’s next words of Duncan and Rachel arriving at the landing platform and about wreckers having attacked them on her Mortal Earth property, forced the air from her lungs. For a long moment, she couldn’t breathe.
Pacing her bathroom, she asked the hard question. “Is Duncan alive?”
“Yes, they both are. Horace is with Duncan now because he’s still in bad shape. Rachel’s pretty shook up.”
“Sonofabitch.”
Jeannie and Carla ran Central Command, a small group of communications experts who kept information moving between Endelle and her warriors as well as among all the Warriors of the Blood. Jeannie rarely took a night off.
“That’s exactly what I said,” Jeannie responded. “But the good news is we’ve got Duncan back. Rachel said he’s come out of his trance.”
“Is his mind okay?”
“Yes, but he’s unconscious.”
“Then how the hell do any of these dumbfucks know he didn’t fall right back into the trance?”
“Because he keeps waking up briefly and calling out for Rachel. Then passes out again.”
Endelle pressed a hand to her chest and more tears burned her eyes. “Creator be praised,” she said quietly.
“Amen to that.”
Endelle stopped her pacing to lean her hips against the sink. She covered her face with both hands, images of the vision still boiling in her head. “Who’s on rotation over there? Is Gideon back yet?”
“He just folded in to see his sister. Colonel Seriffe remained in North Africa with Thorne.”
She nodded as though Jeannie could see her. “Okay, thanks. Let HQ know I’m on my way.”
“Madame Supremeness?”
“Yes?”
“Are you okay?”
For reasons Endelle could not explain, the compassion in Jeannie’s voice chapped her hide. “What the fuck do you care if I’m okay or not! I rule this dimension, in case you forgot.”
But Jeannie chuckled; she’d been around awhile. “That’s better. For a moment there, I thought you’d lost your edge.”
“I am an edge.” A goddamn fucking righteous edge and like hell she was going to let Chustaffus or any other Third Earth asshole take her world.
~ ~ ~
Luken stared down at beautiful red hair cut precisely by one of Scottsdale Two’s pricier salons. Havily bent over a filing cabinet, searching through a bunch of folders and his heart as always felt caught in a vise.
He loved Havily Morgan, now Havily Amargi. She’d married the bastard, her breh, Marcus.
He couldn’t help but be a little bitter. He’d loved Havily long before Marcus returned from Mortal Earth to reenlist as a Warrior of the Blood. And even though Havily had never given Luken one true word of encouragement, hope had simply never died.
She’d been the rising moon to him and the setting sun, every season under heaven, every rise of mountain, every fall of tide. Her skin was like cream, her light green eyes the joy of his existence, and every time she smiled his heart broke a little more.
He still begrudged Marcus his windfall. Marcus had absented himself from battling as a What-bee for two hundred years, while Luken had been the faithful one. He’d stuck it out on Second Earth, battling death vampires at the Borderlands night after night, rarely having any time off. The Borderlands were natural gateways to other dimensions, in this case, Mortal Earth. Death vampires tried to use the Borderlands to get to a plentiful supply of vulnerable human blood. Both the Warriors of the Blood and the Militia Warriors worked hard to keep death vampires from escaping down to Mortal Earth.
Luken knew his duty and he loved fulfilling his obligations.
But why the hell had the Creator rewarded Marcus with an angel like Hav?
Havily rose from the filing cabinet, her arms loaded with manila folders. “Can you believe we still have so many files left? I’m processing stuff from fifty years ago. Although, I have to say some of it is fascinating. Did you know there was an uprising in Angola Two in 1964?”
“One of Greaves’s less exalted schemes.” He chuckled softly. Greaves no longer resided on Second Earth. According to Endelle, he was going through an extremely difficult rehabilitation process that Beatrice of Fourth had developed. Apparently, even psychopaths could be cured.
Luken repressed a need to curse the decision to let Greaves go. But Endelle must have had her reason
s, and like any Warrior of the Blood, he bowed to her will.
Luken drew close and leaned an elbow on the tall, four-drawer cabinet. Havily moved the files to her desk, but returned to chat with him.
She was still young by Second Earth standards having ascended from Vancouver Island Mortal Earth about the turn of the prior century. She leaned her hips against her desk. “Listen, Luken, I hate to bring this up … ”
“Then don’t.” His heart began to race. He didn’t want her to say the words, but he knew what she was thinking.
She glanced at the glass windows of her office that led to the hallway behind him. A number of the executives in Endelle’s administrative HQ worked down the hall and more than one had no doubt witnessed him entering her office. His feelings for her weren’t even a little bit of a secret, so his appearance often set the gossip rolling once again.
She lowered her voice. “You know I like you coming here, right?”
“I do.”
“And that I value our friendship.”
He nodded. He didn’t try to make excuses or to pretend he didn’t feel what he felt. Something in his love for Havily had kept him sane through the last hard century of making war. “I feel the same way.”
“It’s just that, you’ve been here every day this week and Marcus has started getting jumpy. Between you and me, even though we’ve been together a while now, he can still go caveman on me and I don’t want a falling out between you men.”
At that Luken laughed. The breh-hedden made cavemen out of those warriors struck down by what had once been thought to be only a myth. “Heard he punched a Militia Warrior at the Blood and Bite for even mentioning your name.”
Havily’s smile grew crooked. “I love him. Creator help me, I love him so much.”
The words were a knife that had already pierced his heart but kept making slow, agonizing quarter turns every time she spoke of her love for Marcus. And Luken never stopped hoping that if she talked about her breh often enough, Luken would finally stop loving her. But he knew that was impossible. For whatever reason, he loved this woman with every fucking fiber of his being.
She continued, her voice still low, “Not that I’m complaining on my own behalf, but why have you been here so much this week? It’s not been your usual thing for the past several months. In fact, you’ve sort of kept your distance.”
His gaze slipped past her to the large window that overlooked the Sonoran Desert east of Phoenix. So, why had he come here this week, every day, as though compelled?
For Marcus’s sake, and to a larger degree his own, he’d been in the habit of limiting himself to a once-a-week drop-in.
He rubbed his thumb down his cheek a couple of times, which was something he did when he needed to think. Or across his chin. Or his forehead. “No reason. Just wanted to see you.”
But that was a lie.
“Bullshit. Something’s going on with you. I can feel it.”
He didn’t want to burden her. “It’s probably nothing. Just … I don’t know … I’ve been uneasy for days now. The war’s been heating up in North Africa lately and we seem to have more and more death vampires at the Borderlands trying to steal down to Mortal Earth. I keep waiting for the other shoe to drop.”
“Maybe it’s because of Duncan.”
“Well, I’ll admit his situation has us all on edge. You know, Jean-Pierre had been working with him for months and we all knew he had emerging powers of some magnitude. But, if he could get caught in a trance, then probably any of us could.” Maybe Duncan was the reason, he wasn’t sure. But he felt like he had an itch right in the center of his back that he couldn’t scratch. And as he’d always done, he came to Havily because something about her presence calmed him.
He felt his warrior phone vibrate in the thin slot of his battle kilt and withdrew it, turning away from Havily at the same time. “Hey, Jeannie, what’s cookin’?”
All the Warriors of the Blood had credit-card-like phones that kept them connected with Central Command. Jeannie and her staff kept Luken well-informed about death vampire movement at the Borderlands.
“Well, I’ve got good news, then typical news. Which do you want first?”
He stood a little straighter. “I’ll take the good news first. Give.”
“Duncan came out of his trance.” He quickly related the news to Havily. She gave a small jump on her feet then a quiet clap of her hands. He nodded to her as he spoke once more into his phone. “And what’s the typical news?”
“Wreckers tried to take Rachel out on Mortal Earth, just as Duncan arrived to warn her. He passed out, but Rachel was able to fold them both to Apache Junction Two. She said she saw the wreckers just as she vanished. And that’s the other reason I’m calling. Endelle wants you over there ASAP.”
“On my way.”
Shit, Duncan had somehow made it back and Rachel had saved him from a Third Earth wrecking squad. At least he hoped that’s what Jeannie’s call had meant.
He turned back to Havily and saw that her light green eyes were bright with curiosity. “So what else did Jeannie say? I have to know.” She was smiling.
“It’s not all good news.” He hesitated telling her about the wreckers, but not to say anything was foolish. Havily was a helluva lot stronger than she looked and she would be involved at some point anyway. Marcus and Havily worked together doing worldwide PR for Endelle on a regular basis.
So, he told her what he knew.
“Oh, my God.” She put a hand to her chest. “Another Third Earth incursion? What the hell is going on? I thought with the portal to Third closed up again, we were safe from Third involvement. I don’t get it.”
He was about to say something, but a weird dizziness hit him. As he looked at her, she telescoped away from him, fading father and farther from sight.
He felt like he was losing her.
Luken had that same otherworld feeling that had been dogging him for days. Something was on the wind and he was part of it.
When he blinked, the telescoping disappeared and his vision was back to normal.
He had the overwhelming sensation that this was an ending for him, for them. The sweet friendship that he’d always enjoyed with Havily would be no more.
“Luken, you have a funny look in your eye.”
“Hav, your friendship has meant the world to me.”
“I know. We’ve covered that.”
He moved close to her and leaned down to kiss her on the cheek.
When he drew back, he heard a growling sound coming from the doorway. He turned to find Marcus glaring at him, his straight brows a hard slash above his eyes. “What the hell is going on in here?” he barked.
Luken could feel Marcus bristling, but how could he explain? “Apologies, Marcus, I was just leaving.” He then tapped Marcus’s telepathy and pathed, I’m saying good-bye because something big is going on. Can’t explain it. Don’t say anything to Hav.
You sure? Marcus’s shoulders eased back.
Yes.
I won’t say a word. Aloud, Marcus said, “There’s some kind of rumor flashing around the office that Duncan is back.”
Luken relayed the same information that he’d told Havily. “But that’s all I know. And now, if I don’t get over to Militia HQ, Endelle will have my ass in a sling.”
He meant to walk by Marcus, but the brother caught his arm. “Hey. I never meant to be a hardass about Havily.”
“You weren’t.” But there it was again, a sense of something final happening in this room. He was grateful that Marcus had shown up when he did. “You were … incredibly gracious. But I … listen, I hope I didn’t—”
Marcus suddenly slung an arm around Luken’s neck. He had at least twenty percent more muscle mass than Marcus, but the brother was big and the hug that followed wrenched something inside Luken’s chest and his eyes burned.
Again, it felt like good-bye.
When he drew back, he cleared his throat as did Marcus, a sure sign they’d both crossed t
he line of warrior-ness.
Luken took one last look at Havily, then headed downstairs to the landing platforms. Security had tightened all around the Phoenix area, in Endelle’s Administrative HQ, at her palace at the McDowell Mountains, and at Militia HQ.
But the same sensation was back. He had a pretty good idea he wouldn’t be visiting Havily anymore.
~ ~ ~
At the same moment that Yolanthe received word that the wreckers had failed by a particle of a second to kill Rachel, Chustaffus had requested her presence in his library. She was severely disappointed that Duncan had somehow escaped her mind-link and that Rachel still lived. But as she took up her habitual seat in her father’s Chicago Three castle, she knew better than to let any of her emotions show.
She held herself with a good two inches between her back and the very upright seat in which she sat. She remained as always, like a piece of statuary in her father’s home, something to be looked at and perhaps valued at a distance, but treated without any real value.
Her legs were crossed at the ankles and shunted to the side to give her gown a smooth, seamless look. Her small white hands were folded in her lap, palms up.
She held the loop of her leopard’s leash around her right wrist, but she didn’t dare touch the cat or her father would reprimand her severely. He only barely tolerated her pet as it was.
Turning her attention toward her father, she could see that he was troubled, a circumstance that made her wing-locks tighten. She knew then that the meeting would not end well for her. But that didn’t matter. She understood and valued her role in her father’s life.
Her chest swelled as she watched Chustaffus. She felt as she always did; she was in the presence of true greatness. He was a renowned warrior in their world and had served as a Warrior of the Blood three millennia past, battling death vampires across a good portion of Third Earth.
Then two thousand years ago, he’d gathered all the leaders of the world together, created a Senate that he controlled, and made himself ruler of Third Earth. This was long before her birth a mere nine-hundred-years ago. But she knew Chustaffus’s history better than anyone in the dimension.