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He just didn’t have a choice. He’d given two thousand years of his life in service to Second Earth, but this he had to do for himself.
Finally, without another word, he thumbed his phone.
He waved a hand and changed out of his battle flight gear. He wore jeans, a wife-beater shirt, and heavy steel-toed boots. He folded a thick wad of twenty-dollar bills into his hand and stuffed it into his pocket.
He folded straight to the New River Borderland, and with the power of his two thousand years he jumped into the Trough and slammed through nether-space. The ride done this way, through the space between the dimensions, had the effect of wiping out his power signature on Central’s or Militia HQ’s grids—any grids for that matter, Greaves’s Command Center included. No one would be able to locate him on Mortal Earth.
So, yeah, he was going rogue.
When he touched down on New River Mortal Earth, he looked around. Just a few houses. A few cars.
He had only one problem: How the hell was he going to find Marguerite in a dimension that had seven billion people on the goddam planet?
* * *
Marguerite drove across the barren stretch of I-10 between Albuquerque and San Antonio One, her right hand on the wheel and her left arm lazing across the door. She had the top down on the vintage Chevy she’d stolen in Phoenix. She had crisscrossed the country a dozen times since folding the hell out of Endelle’s office.
She’d left Second Earth via the downtown Phoenix Two Trough, set up mist around her own sweet self, and hunted for just the right vehicle.
Damn, she loved this car.
She loved her freedom.
Freedom was her air.
She had her long hair twisted on top of her head in a banana clip so that the sun could find her shoulders every second of every day. She’d become a sun worshipper since she’d seen the damn thing so infrequently during her prison term.
She wore a bright red halter that revealed a lot of cle**age, and she let her skin burn. At first it had blistered and peeled and blistered and peeled, but she didn’t care. She had the power to heal it up, but why? She’d spend hours in front of the mirror in one cheap motel room after another watching her skin tone deepen and darken.
Now she had a dark rich tan and meant to keep it that way. Her really cutoff cutoffs helped as well, since the frayed edge lived in the seam between her hips and legs when she sat down. When she stood up, the pockets dipped below and looked like two flags against her Coppertone skin.
A vast shimmering appeared on the highway a quarter mile distant.
Oh, shit.
She slammed on the brakes and pulled over.
Owen Stannett, wearing the usual embroidered leather, appeared on the hood of her car. She hated that smile so much that she almost puked. But what she really hated was that weird wave of hair on the side of his head. What a freak.
She leaned back in her seat. “What do you want, motherfucker?” She didn’t have her leg shackled anymore and she was beginning to figure out that her red variety of obsidian flame carried a lot of power with it. She spent every part of her day working her powers. She had powers no one even dreamed of.
“Darian has big plans for you, honey. He sent me to find you and now I’m here. Time to go to work, sweetheart.”
“In your dreams, perv.” She waved a hand and Owen flew backward up into the sky until he winked out of sight.
She put her car in gear and drove on. Stannett wasn’t a fighter. He wouldn’t be back until he was sure he could subdue her. Still, she felt confident she could take him.
There was just one little problem.
If Darian was on her ass, one little orbit flight for the Fortress Fuck wouldn’t stop the little peach.
Now what was she supposed to do?
Then she smiled. So what if Darian came sniffing around. She was gaining power every day. If she had to, she’d battle him herself, to the death if need be, because like hell was she ever going to be shut up in some fortress or Convent or any other f**king facsimile that one of these shit-eaters dished up for her.
Her smile broadened. There was one thing she was going to do as soon as she hit San Antonio. She was going to find herself a hair salon and get tricked out with something short, wavy, and platinum blond.
Afterward she’d hit a bar. She’d spent the last week getting the lay of the land, flirting with men, figuring out what she was dealing with. But now it was time to get serious, time to start living out all those bed-thumping fantasies that had kept her going for the past ten decades.
Oh … yeah.
The purpose of ritual is to train the soul,
And to ease the suffering of the spirit.
—The Creator’s Handbook, Sister Quena
Chapter 25
Jean-Pierre could see within Gideon. He could see where the warrior held back and in what ways he needed to move beyond his present ability. Endelle called this a facilitation power, newly emerged, a gift of the breh-hedden. He had seen glimpses of it in prior months, even years, but once he bonded with Fiona, the gift grew stronger and stronger.
Two weeks had passed since he completed the breh-hedden with Fiona and so much had changed, for him and within him. He could feel Fiona, just as the other bonded vampires could feel their brehs. She was at the rehab center and had a slight pain in her right hip because she had been sitting too long. So strange to know what she experienced at all times.
Gideon sparred with another powerful Militia Warrior as each worked to improve his battling skills. He could see that Gideon, so close to Warrior of the Blood status, still struggled with combining preternatural speed and folding. The skill was critical in battling several death vampires at once. But it was as though Jean-Pierre could see the empty space in his thinking that needed to be filled.
When the men lowered their swords and separated to catch their breaths, he called out, “Gideon. A word with you.”
Gideon lowered his chin and scowled. “I’m busy.”
Jean-Pierre smiled. He could not help himself. In spirit, Gideon was already a Warrior of the Blood. He was territorial and defensive. He would battle Jean-Pierre to the death over his pride alone.
As Jean-Pierre met his gaze, he swept his emerging empathic ability over the warrior and found what he needed in order to reach the man. “I thought we should have a contest, you and me. A comparison that might end the suspense.”
“What the f**k are you talking about?”
“To see whose dick is bigger, of course. What do you say?”
Gideon shook his head then laughed. “Fuck,” he muttered. Finally, he said, “What do you want, Warrior?”
