Obsidian Flame (52 page)

She’d made a connection with Fiona a few weeks ago and in her way she’d helped Fiona and Endelle rescue twenty thousand people from Dark Spectacle.

The connection was special.

She dove once more within her obsidian flame power and this time sent a message to Fiona. As before the power seemed to dwindle to a weak stream. She couldn’t do this alone. Greaves had blocked their power.

Thorne,
she sent.

She waited.

After a moment, very faint,
I’m here, sweetheart.

The sound of his gravelly voice, deep within her mind, strengthened her.
We have to combine power to reach Fiona. I’m coming to you, okay?

Another long pause. Too long.

Yes.

Despite how weak he sounded, she pushed into his mind and at first was startled at how cold and empty it was. But she could feel some warmth and headed in the direction of what she knew to be his obsiddy power.

She arrived, shocked at how faint the light was, when before he’d been a ball of fire. Regardless, she pushed through the membrane.

The moment she did, it was as though she’d lit a match.

Thorne groaned.
Oh, God, you feel so damn good.

So there’s a little life left in you after all.
But she sent him her love and she heard him draw in a strong breath and let it out.

You love me?

I do, more than I’ve understood, fool that I am.
And that was the truth. Hard-core obsidian truth.

He sent,
So what have you got in mind, here?

We’ll do this together. My instincts tell me it will make a difference.

Do it, Marguerite, and no matter what happens, know that I’ll love you forever.

She moved her power straight into his. She felt a deep kind of rumbling within herself, within her mind. She had felt this before, with Fiona.

And this was the truth about obsidian power: that it was all about connection, about joining forces, and about trust.

Call her now,
Thorne sent.

She shot the message in a powerful thrust, wanting to make the most of it. Greaves seemed to have control of what happened inside the cage; she had no idea if they’d get more than one chance at making contact.

To be chosen, no matter how great or small the task,

Is to curry the favor of the gods.

—
Collected Proverbs,
Beatrice of Fourth

CHAPTER 22

Fiona dropped to her knees on one of the zebra rugs in Endelle’s office and covered her ears.

“
Chérie
, what is it?” Jean-Pierre sank beside her and tried to pull her hands away from her ears, but she wouldn’t let him.

And now her ears were bleeding.

“Hold on,” she said to Jean-Pierre. “It’s Thorne and Marguerite, I think.”

She heard murmurs and gasps flow through the office. All the warriors and their women had gathered to find out what happened when Thorne, with Marguerite on his coattails, folded to what Leto had said was one of the white tiger cages in Greaves’s spectacle parade.

Endelle, sitting at her desk but in a strangely weakened state, murmured, “Thank the Creator.”

Fiona had heard Thorne’s voice in her head, yet not his voice. More like Marguerite’s, yet not hers, either … more like
theirs.

She closed her eyes and focused on her obsidian flame power. When she dipped deep within her mind, following the dark channel that led to her power, she saw that the center of it was pulsing with light and heat. Whatever was going on, this was new.

She approached carefully and sent,
Marguerite and Thorne, if that’s you, please not so loud. My eardrums burst again.
Jean-Pierre was now wiping at her face and neck with a damp cloth.

You’re there,
Marguerite cried.

She winced and she knew tears had popped form her eyes.
Gently. Quietly. Please.

Sorry
. This from Thorne.

You’re both alive. Thank God. Where are you? What can I do? Leto let everyone know you were trying to rescue Grace. We’re so worried.

We’re in bad shape,
Marguerite sent
. Thorne fought a tiger bare-handed and we’re cut up. Greaves made it impossible to use most of our powers. Thorne is near death. I’m not far behind.

We need Endelle,
Fiona said
. Hold on. We’re going to do what we did at Dark Spectacle and Greaves can just eat shit on this one.

Jean-Pierre helped Fiona rise to her feet. She approached Endelle’s desk and relayed the situation, then added, “Shall we go get them?”

Endelle nodded, but she remained seated. For this, Fiona’s body would do the heavy lifting, but inside, it would be all Endelle.

Let’s do this thing,
Endelle sent.
Ramp up my power, Fiona, then I’ll take possession.

Fiona nodded.

The power flowed.

*   *   *

Endelle stared at Fiona. Her power began to merge with Fiona’s incredible obsidian power. Her mind worked at lightning speed.

Now all she needed to do was possess the woman, and they’d get through anything together.

Hang tough,
she said to Fiona.

She felt the woman step aside mentally.
I’m all yours, Endelle. Let’s bring them home.

Endelle leaned back in her chair and relaxed. She mentally took possession of Fiona and felt her powers expand exponentially.

She now looked through Fiona’s eyes. She glanced around her office. All the warriors and their women were present. They all waited for her orders.

To Marcus, she said, “Get Horace here.” He nodded.

She turned to Luken. “You’re coming with. I want you to carry Thorne out.”

He dipped his chin. “Let’s go.”

Endelle focused now on Fiona’s connection with Marguerite. She could feel the woman’s power fading, but she got a fix on her location. She moved to Luken and touched his shoulder. She thought the fucking brilliant thought.

Within the space of two heartbeats she touched down right next to the maw of a very dead, torn-up tiger. Luken turned, saw Thorne, then crossed in two long strides and picked him up in his arms.

Endelle did the same with Marguerite.

At the same time, she felt Greaves coming, a tornado of rage. She could feel the power-block he’d put over the cage. No wonder her second-in-command had all but lost this battle.

However, she slid next to Luken, touched his arm, and once more thought the thought. She traveled back through nether-space and with Marguerite in her arms, she touched down to face the same arc of warriors and their
brehs.

She glanced at Thorne in Luken’s arms. His complexion was now perfectly white.

She could feel that he was gone.

She separated from Fiona’s body and returned to hers. It felt weird to be back. She opened her eyes and felt stronger for the recent connection to Fiona. She rose from her chair and moved with lightning speed back to Thorne.

Horace already had his hands over Thorne’s body and two other healers were working on the various deep cuts, but nothing was happening.

Endelle looked down at Thorne.

He couldn’t be dead. He just couldn’t.

Two more healers worked on Marguerite. She was unconscious but breathing.

“How we doin’?” she asked Horace.

“He’s lost so much blood. There … just isn’t anything left. He has no heartbeat.”

Endelle shook her head, back and forth, over and over.

This could not be happening.

This was Thorne, her second-in-command, the one she had come to rely on in all things, the one who had helped her to not feel so alone for, oh, about twenty centuries. And he was dead.

Her throat ached.

This couldn’t be happening, couldn’t be real. She needed to do something, but what? She didn’t exactly have the power to bring vampires back to life.

But this was Thorne.

Thorne.

Her closest friend. Her best friend. A man she loved with all her heart. Her family.

Oh … God.

She had to do something.

She glanced at Marguerite, then at Havily. If there had been any life left in Thorne, Havily could have brought him the rest of the way back. But a dead man couldn’t drink, couldn’t swallow.

“Feed Marguerite, or she’ll die.”

Havily raced in Marguerite’s direction and before a handful of seconds passed, Marguerite nursed on her wrist drawing all that extraordinary power down her throat.

Endelle turned once more to stare down at a dead man.

Everything she despised about the war began to flow through her veins. Her mouth turned down, dragged down by all the hatred she felt, for all the ways this war had been a hopeless, useless endeavor for centuries, the never-ending creation of death vampires by the enemy, the incessant battling at night and wearing out of her warriors, the constant political manipulations by Greaves.

To end here, in this room, with Thorne dead, filled her with a fury the likes of which she had never known. She could feel the vibration of her rage. Her black hair swirled around her. A wind that only her ire could create moved in great swells and slammed into the warriors and their
brehs.

She couldn’t let this be the end.

She would not let this be the end.

She glanced at Fiona, then Jean-Pierre. “Get your woman out of here or her eardrums will bust open even wider than before.”

Jean-Pierre didn’t wait. He put his arms around Fiona. They vanished.

She turned to face the rest: Kerrick and Alison, Marcus, Medichi and Parisa, Luken, Santiago, Zacharius. “I want you to get everyone out of this building, then you must leave.”

Marcus called out, “I’ll take care of the building. Just hold on.” He closed his eyes and a split second later, an alarm sounded. From her office she could feel the massive and abrupt folding of thousands of employees.

She glanced at Marguerite, who now stared at her wide-eyed, still sucking at Havily’s wrist. She popped off with a sudden smack and pushed Havily’s arm away. “I’m staying.”

Endelle nodded. “Yes.”

As Havily rose to her feet, Endelle gave her a shove. “Go with Marcus.” Her voice trembled. Her arms shook.

No one challenged her. They just left one after the other, stricken, ill, frightened. She sent Horace and his healers away as well.

When the last of them left and when she checked the building and found that the high-rise was also empty of people, she waved a hand. The alarms grew silent.

Marguerite leaned over Thorne and kissed him on the lips.

Maybe that was the last straw in this horrible farce called ascension. She wasn’t sure, but she lifted her arms to the ceiling and she screamed long and hard then she called for James over and over.

The windows rattled, the walls vibrated. Her hair whipped around now, a pure reflection of her rage and of her determination.

When James didn’t appear, she let her power flow from her in pulsing waves. The windows went first, blowing out into the desert.

“You will come to me,”
she shouted, splitting her resonance a dozen times.
“You will come to me now and you will give me back what was taken from me today or by God I will not hold back and my soul and my body be damned for what I am about to do, so help me God. Do you hear me, Luchianne? The vows I took, the laws I promised to obey, mean nothing to me if this man remains in this lifeless state.

“I have served and I have been ignored and I will be ignored no longer.

“If you do not send your Sixth healers to me right now, then I will begin Armageddon myself. I will use every power at my command, including obsidian flame, and I will take this dimension down to ashes.”

James appeared ten feet away, holding himself steady as the wind of her rage struck him first on one side then the other. “We all die,” he said.

“Fuck that,”
she cried, splitting her resonance three times.
“Bring the healers now. Or I will destroy this planet, one rock, one drop of water, one ascender at a time if I have to.”