Gates of Rapture (The Guardians of Ascension) (15 page)

To Grace’s complete shock, everyone began moving in prearranged directions away from the grounds. Within seconds, only Militia Warriors remained, and all of them were assembling with amazing speed by the landing platforms.

“Leto,” Jean-Pierre murmured. “You have worked miracles here.”

Leto nodded, but he set his gaze on Thorne.

Thorne was the man in charge, the one who was building Endelle’s army and working with dozens of Militia Warrior Section Leaders to formulate battle plans. He said, “It’s clear we’re looking at trouble with a hidden colony here on Mortal Earth, so I’m deferring to Leto on this. He’s set up the global defense system for this dimension.”

Leto glanced toward the landing platforms. “My men know what to do. What we need is the location of the attack.”

A moment later, Endelle folded right next to Thorne, adjusting a strange necklace of pinecones and butterflies. She twisted her neck and gave the necklace one more turn. “Just got the call from Jeannie that we have some deep shit going on here.” She caught sight of Grace. “And why does our latest obsidian flame look like a goddam glowing Smurf?”

A few nervous barks of laughter followed.

Grace couldn’t help herself. She laughed as well, then sobered instantly. Dear Creator, her head really hurt.

“We’ve got trouble.” Leto said. He glanced at Marguerite then back. “Future streams just told us one of the colonies will be under attack in a few minutes.”

“Which colony?”

“We don’t know.”

Endelle turned to Thorne, “Well, you’re obsidian flame. Can’t you find out?” She planted her hands on her hips, which drew Grace’s gaze back to the pinecone-butterfly necklace, then to the bees that appeared to be buzzing around Endelle’s calves and knees.

Grace was convinced that no one was as absurd as the ruler of Second Earth. She might even have laughed at the strange outfit, but her obsidian power set up a new wave and her head really started to pound. She winced.

Then she understood. “I think I can find the colony. I remember now that when Leto was in trouble in Moscow, my obsidian flame power led me to him through my split-self apparition. I believe I can do it again here. Marguerite, why don’t you show me what you saw in the future streams, and we’ll see what happens.”

“Okay.”

Grace crossed to Marguerite and put her hands on her face. “Show me,” she said quietly.

The vision flew through her mind swiftly and seemed to resonate with her obsidian power. The next moment she was flying through space in that same split-self, her ghost-like apparition, the one she’d used to bring Leto out of Moscow Two. She could sense that she was heading south, as in South America.

When she arrived at the vision’s destination, she looked around. She could see both the limited farmland and the nearby barren hills. She saw a small town, maybe ten or twenty thousand people. Not far, and to the east of a dry riverbed, lay the colony, all secure and locked down with Diallo’s mossy-mist creation protecting the location. However, as she turned in every direction, she could see death vampires on each horizon all headed toward the colony.

She dipped her apparition-self toward the lights of the town and found the name on a couple of storefronts: Nazca. She knew this place. The entire world was fascinated with the famous lines that an ancient culture had drawn in the sand, which could still be viewed, all these hundreds of years later, from high in the air. A spider and a hummingbird were the most famous designs.

Satisfied, she thought the thought and her apparition-self began flying back to the Seattle Colony. When she reconnected with herself, it took a moment to adjust. She opened her eyes and found everyone staring at her with wide eyes. Leto had shifted to support her, holding her by the waist.

She blinked a couple of times. “I’m sure that must have seemed strange but I have the location. Nazca, Peru.” At the same moment, however, her headache tore through her skull. She dropped to her knees, clutching the sides of her head. She felt Leto’s strong hands on her shoulders and as if at a distance she could hear his voice, but she couldn’t respond. Tears streamed down her face. “Grace, I’m here. What’s wrong?”

Marguerite said, “She has to get that sheath sliced, Leto. It’s her power. It’s trying to break through. Better do it soon.”

“Understood.”

*   *   *

Leto couldn’t just leave Grace in so much pain, but he had his teams to lead. He stood up and looked at Endelle. “I need to get my warriors down to Peru now. Can you help Grace?”

Endelle smiled. “Leave her to me, Warrior. Get your men to Nazca.” When Endelle drew her phone into her hand and a moment later started barking orders at Alison, telling her to get her ass down to the Seattle Colony, Leto knew he could trust the situation.

He turned and headed to the landing platform. He wasn’t surprised that Thorne, Jean-Pierre, and Arthur followed him. Diallo was waiting for him and Leto filled him in.

Diallo frowned. “The Nazca Colony only has a population of four hundred and you say several hundred death vampires will be attacking?”

“Yes.”

“It would be a slaughter.”

“Not if we can help it. I’m sending the squadrons now.” He glanced at the top of the ramp. Gideon stood there awaiting orders. Leto placed a call to the colony’s Militia HQ and folding coordinates were laid in within seconds.

Leto met Gideon’s gaze and let the orders fly. “To Nazca. Now.”

The squads began to fold in brisk succession, eight at a time. Within one minute a hundred warriors had folded to Peru, and the second hundred began folding equally as fast.

Leto nodded to Diallo. Glancing over his shoulder, he saw that Alison was already with Grace.

He turned and ran up the ramp with what he now thought of as his own squad. Once he reached the top, he, Thorne, Jean-Pierre, and Arthur folded to Nazca. Gideon would remain behind to keep the warriors en route to the battle zone until at least a thousand Militia Warriors were doing battle.

Once Leto touched down, and thanks to long training, he moved swiftly away from the landing site, mounted his wings, folded his sword into his hand, and took to the night skies.

Out in the desert, the moon lit up the skies like a beacon. It was so bright that the ground seemed to be covered in snow.

His warriors, male and female, battled death vampires all over the sky, but it was to the colony that Leto headed. He knew that any colonists attacked by death vampires would die within seconds. No mercy would be shown.

He pulled his wings in tight, dipped and corrected to miss battling squadrons. He aimed for the now visible world of the colony. There was a main street and low simple buildings made of stone blocks, carved out of the land.

He could hear screams coming from houses and alleys between. Once he reached the ground, however, he retracted his wings and entered the first house he came to. There was a lot of blood and too many bodies. He raced through and found a death vampire in the back room with a teen ascender, drinking her down, raping her.

He threw a dagger into his kidney, which brought the death vamp arching back and off the young woman. Leto moved swiftly and with his sword took the bastard’s head.

The girl pushed away from the monster, then crawled to the other side of the room. He didn’t want to leave her, but he had to go. “Hide,” he said.

She held her neck and nodded. She slid quickly beneath the bed.

He left by way of the window, jumping out.

His night progressed in exactly that way. He went from house to house hunting for evil, finding it, striking it down.

He came upon four death vamps in a house on a hill near a small dry streambed. These pretty-boys were huge, and he recognized them for what they were. They belonged to a group of recruits brought from Third Earth, something Greaves had been doing for the past year. No one knew exactly how he’d been doing it, but Greaves was a vampire with many tricks.

Leto knew he wasn’t a match for these vamps in his current state. When three of them turned and stared at him indifferently, while the other continued drinking a woman to death, Leto felt the vibration go down his left leg, then his right.

For the first time, he did exactly what Brynna had been encouraging him to do all along: He let his beast take over. At the same moment he mentally adjusted the belt of his kilt as well as the buckles of his shin guards and battle sandals. He got rid of his weapons harness altogether.

“Motherfucker” came out of one of the oversized death vamps. “Where the hell did you learn to do that, traitor?”

Leto smiled. Now, there was one of the great ironies of his life—that a death vampire would call him traitor.

His sword almost felt small in his beast-sized hand. “What’s the matter, pretty-boy? You afraid of me?”

“Just because you can morph like a Third Earth warrior? Hell, no. There are still four of us and only one of you.”

“Bring it, asshole. Let’s see what you’ve got.”

Leto felt more powerful than he ever had before. He held out the palm of his left hand and let a hand-blast fly. The sound was almost deafening in the small house.

The death vamp on the left took it in the chest. He flew backward, hard into the wall. His ribs were smashed in. He wouldn’t be breathing anymore.

Leto aimed another hand-blast at the second death vamp, but since the bastard had decided to deliver his own deadly blast, the searing energy met in the middle, soared upward, and blew part of the roof off.

All this activity had the advantage of getting the fourth death vamp off the woman. But knowing the power of these Third Earth death vamps as he did, Leto was still no match for their combined strength and skill, so he used his primary advantage: his battle experience.

He folded behind them, shoved a dagger through the back of one, then folded outside the building and waited.

Two to go.

“Get him” came from inside. “He’s out there. I can smell him.”

Leto cloaked himself in mist. He listened. He felt the air move behind him. He swung his sword and took the bastard’s head off. It hit the stone lane with a terrible thump.

Only one left.

Leto looked up the lane. He extended his vision and saw a number of colonists rising up to look at him. He waved them down and they disappeared.

Good. The people were hiding. Part of the strategy among all the colonies was to teach the people to move the most vulnerable well way from the buildings when the death vampires came.

He smiled, remembering something Arthur had done to taunt death vampires. He made a raspberry sound with his lips. “Come out and play,” he shouted, letting his mist melt away.

He wasn’t going to hide this time.

The last death vamp leaped through the window, and it was game on. He was huge, like Leto, and had Third Earth skills. But Leto had been a warrior for three millennia while it seemed this bastard had been relying on size alone to win his battles.

Leto circled, his sword held out and away from his body. He watched the bastard’s eyes; when they shifted he lunged, blocked, stepped back, then whirled. With another swift lunge, he caught the pretty-boy up through soft part of the belly.

His scream swallowed up the night air.

Leto withdrew his sword. The death vamp fell forward and Leto, also with the practice of millennia, took his head.

He leaned back, bent his knees, and roared into the air.

He pivoted and headed back to the main street on a run, his gaze strafing the sky above, then every shadow nearby. By now, a thousand militia warriors were swarming the town. There were bodies of death vampires everywhere, some moving slightly, others inert.

Gideon had the north end secured and Diallo had already arrived to begin repairing the mist that had been burned away.

The air smelled of smoke and blood and fear.

The fighting was thickest now at the southern end, but the battle was almost over. His warriors were steadily collecting death vampire bodies and moving them to Gideon’s position.

Standing off to the side, Leto watched Gideon direct traffic. He had his warrior phone to his ear, issuing removal orders either to the morgue at Apache Junction Two or to the one at Central Command. Headless bodies and the detached heads began disappearing as fast as they were collected.

The mission proceeded with great speed, all the warriors moving on lightning feet. Months of training had paid off.

Gideon kept sending repeat details to scour each house, each garden, each nearby ravine, and especially the underground cisterns, hunting for the enemy. There was no way they were leaving a single death vamp behind.

Leto approached Gideon, knowing that he would look strange to the warrior, but it couldn’t be helped. Besides, in this form, Leto had vanquished four Third Earth death vamps. Not half bad for a beast-man.

Gideon’s eyes widened a little, as did the eyes of a number of the Militia Warriors near him.

Leto shrugged. “Better get used to it. Apparently, this is my new look.”

Gideon glanced around and ordered everyone back to work. “We’re bringing in backup squads to patrol through the night.”

“How many?”

“Twenty.”

“Good.” That would put eighty warriors on the ground. “And the healers?”

“As soon as the fighting in the south is done, we’re bringing them in. Horace has forty ready to go. But, Leto, we have at least twenty dead colonists, and several of our warriors didn’t make it.”

It could have been worse. It could have been a disaster. That’s what he thought but that’s not what he said. “We’ll need counselors in here as well.”

Gideon nodded. “Mei-Amadi will take charge of that.”

“Do we know how the colony was identified by the enemy? Did any of your men find transmitters?”

“Yes,” Gideon said. “They’re everywhere. But we knew it was just a matter of time.” He looked up. “Diallo feels confident this renewed layer of mist will eradicate the position of the colony. If Greaves’s army wants to come back, they’ll have to work for it.”

Several hours later, the Nazca One Colony was well in hand. Gideon sent dozens of Militia Warriors to search out the last of the transmitters.