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Crace’s knees buckled—so, yeah, Leto had power—but he didn’t fall. More groans erupted throughout the war room. The only problem Crace had now was his inability to hear out of his right ear. His head throbbed.
However, this situation, and his nine minutes with his wife, would not sit well with the Commander. He was merely fronting in a room loaded with testosterone, something he had to do to save his ass. Greaves was a different story. His bowels turned to water at the thought of facing him.
“General Leto,” a familiar velvet-on-steel voice intruded. The Commander was back from wherever the hell he’d been in his ongoing efforts to turn High Administrators. “You are too hard on our visitor. He did his best, I am sure. I beg you will apologize to High Administrator Crace. At once.”
Leto bowed quickly from the waist. “I apologize, Mr. High Administrator.”
“Good. We must all be friends for the Coming Order. Leto, continue if you will to monitor the dispatches from my discretionary network. I will confer with you later.”
“Yes, Commander.”
“Crace, come with me.”
Crace squared his shoulders then moved quickly to follow the Commander from the War Room. Thank God his deity didn’t speak because he still wasn’t hearing properly out of his right ear, which was the ear facing the Commander. He reached out with his senses, probing Greaves’s feelings ever so lightly. Nothing returned to him. Usually he could read any individual’s state of being with a mere whisper of a thought, but the man beside him was a walking piece of steel … emotionally.
Once inside the Commander’s office, Crace stood before the desk while Greaves once more took up his seat behind the ebony battleship. He smiled at Crace, his eyes cold. “You have always enjoyed your wife, have you not?”
Crace nodded. So the Commander knew. Jesus, how did he know?
“I do not suffer fools lightly.”
“Of course not.”
“You celebrated a little too early.”
He nodded. “Yes, Commander.”
“I will need you to sign a breach-of-promise form as well as a disclaimer against your life should anything befall you in the next few days. You will remain in Phoenix Two, of course.”
“Of course, Commander.” He wanted to fall on his knees and beg for a second chance. He’d been so foolish, yet his wife had called and said such things to him. She had shared his euphoria over the coming offer of a seat at the Round Table. Perhaps he could explain how his wife had seduced him. He dismissed the idea as ridiculous. He knew the Commander’s temper extremely well. Any passing-of-the-buck would result in his nuts being held in a very tight grasp.
So … he waited.
“You have disappointed me, Crace.”
“Yes, Commander.” The fewer the words spoken, the better.
Greaves nodded. “I want you to contact COPASS. Set up a meeting with Harding. We will have need of the Committee’s support in the coming hours. Harding will be desirous of a mortal female at this time. Provide one for him. Help him to understand our needs.”
“Yes, Commander.” The Committee. Of course. The word among the High Administrators who had joined Greaves’s coalition was that the Commander had taken pains to work his magic with the various Committee members. To his knowledge, almost a third of them were now addicted to dying blood and making use of the antidote, that little concoction of Greaves’s that prevented the acquiring of death vampire traits, especially the faint bluing of the skin. With more and more of the Committee under Greaves’s thumb—including the chair, Daniel Harding—the Commander frequently had Endelle’s legal complaints delayed and at times her court verdicts overturned. Harding’s conversion had been a profound triumph for the Commander and in Crace’s opinion the signal that the war had turned permanently in Greaves’s direction. It wouldn’t be much longer before the balance on all fronts would force Endelle’s administration to collapse.
“As for our little project,” the Commander said, “I want you to send a regiment to Carefree. You are familiar with what is there?”
A test. At least this one he could pass. “The ascendiate’s private residence.” He rattled off all the details he had memorized from the satellite photos until the Commander lifted a hand. Crace shut his vocal cords down with a quick snap of his jaws.
“Good. I have had word from my Seers Fortress in Singapore that the ascendiate will be in Carefree sometime within the next twenty-four hours. Have General Leto monitor the grid in the war room for the ascendiate’s signature. See to the destruction of both Warrior Kerrick and the ascendiate. And remember, we have one significant advantage—Warrior Kerrick cannot dematerialize. Do not hesitate to use the big guns. Get them both this time. Take the house down to rubble if you have to. I need this done. Do you understand?”
“Yes, master.”
Crace admired his deity very much. An entire regiment was forbidden on Mortal Earth, which meant the Commander was relying on present influence with the Committee to get around these details.
His shoulders eased and he no longer felt like puking. A regiment would get the job done, which then explained the need to consult with Harding. The chair ought to be warned about what was going down.
Of course it occurred to him that the Commander, by using Crace, removed himself from any culpability in the matter. He didn’t mind being cast as the fall guy because in this case, he knew he could get out of any situation he desired.
“You may go.”
Crace did not wait. He bowed, turned on his heel, then strode as confidently from the room as he could. Once outside, with the door shut, the shaking started. Yes, the plan was excellent but the other matter! The disclaimer! Shit.
How quietly, how calmly the Commander made his threats. A disclaimer was essentially a suicide note. If anything went wrong, and Crace got offed, the Commander would simply offer the signed disclaimer to the Committee and the matter would be dropped.
Struggling to even breathe, he folded to his suite. The honor of being situated so close to Greaves’s quarters now took on an entirely different meaning.
Okay. Get a grip. All is not lost.
He would set his strategy then return to the war room to deliver his next set of orders to the generals. Afterward, he would tend to the chairman of COPASS.
He and Harding had always gotten along, quite well. Although he confessed he’d been shocked when he’d learned that Harding had for at least a year been in the habit of drinking dying blood. But he was also intrigued. As a hedonist, Crace had always wondered what the experience would feel like.
