Don’t I always, he sent.
Endelle laughed then fell silent. After a moment, her voice pummeled the inside of his head. Holy shit! Can you hear that? Damn, this ascendiate has power.
Kerrick turned his attention to the Trough. He could feel it now, a deep vibration within the dimension. Beneath his sandals, the earth rattled back and forth, earthquake-fashion, and a sound like a freight train grew louder and louder.
The next moment an explosion ripped the air. The sand rose like a geyser straight up out of the Trough, a quarter of a mile high and a full ten feet across. He’d never seen anything like it in his life.
Holy shit. A hand-blast through a dimension.
He had never known an ascendiate with such a highly developed level of power. She would be one helluvan asset to Endelle and one huge threat to Greaves. No wonder he’d sent Leto and three squads of death vamps to head her off. He needed her dead. Period. And despite the big rule of no death vamps on Mortal Earth, this was war and the bastards would follow him into the Trough anyway. When Leto and his crew showed up on Mortal Earth, COPASS would treat it as part of the ascendiate’s rite of ascension and not the usual violation of Second Earth Law.
He sighed. Same old shit.
He thought of Alison, of having held her in his arms and how difficult it had been to penetrate her mind, the same woman who had folded out of the Blood and Bite.
He moved back several yards as the sand began cascading back on itself, falling into the wash as well as the surrounding lawn. Leto and his men dropped into crouches and took the brunt of the sand on their backs. One of the vamps writhed under the onslaught. The others held steady. Leto, as expected, didn’t flinch.
Kerrick focused on securing the ascendiate for Endelle. Nothing else mattered.
Leto rose and reached for his phone.
Kerrick called to him sharply, not wanting him to contact anyone who could start sending death vamps into the Trough. “Hey, dickheads. Looking for me?”
Twelve. Thirteen, counting Leto. Well … this would be a challenge. He dipped his chin. Bring it on.
Leto turned around, dispensed with his phone, folding his sword into his hand at the same time. “Well, if it isn’t Thorne’s lapdog. Look, boys. Cocksucker just arrived.”
“Fuck you, Leto.”
“You first, ass**le.”
Kerrick would have preferred to mount his wings but since he’d be heading into the Trough, he couldn’t. You never got dumped in full-mount. The wings would never survive the fall. Besides, he could manage this bunch on solid ground.
Endelle? he sent.
Just get me some blue skin first then prepare to get dumped. Whatever you do, don’t mount your wings.
Got it.
He lowered his head, lifted his sword, and with preternatural speed launched at all thirteen vampires at once.
* * *
“Will you look at that,” Endelle cried. Her chest felt on fire as she watched Kerrick fight. She had Marcus’s wrist in a stranglehold to keep him from folding into the fray. “Three down and the rest of those motherfuckers are scratching ass, wondering what the hell happened.”
Marcus shouted, “Endelle, let go of me. Now!”
“No can do, gorgeous.” Of course he was anxious to do battle. He was a goddamn warrior and she was streaming Kerrick’s moves straight into his head, a blow-by-blow event, which caused Marcus’s face to darken and his lips to curl into a fierce snarl.
She stood with him in front of her desk, restraining him. She wished she could have sent him immediately to back Kerrick up, but as much as she valued his readiness to wield the sword, she couldn’t risk the two of them being together right now, not with so much bad blood between them.
“Let me go!” he cried. “Ten to one. If Leto engages…”
She smiled. Marcus was a warrior at heart, in every cell of his body, no matter what he’d been doing for the last two hundred years.
“Relax. Be patient. Leto’s too busy texting, which tells me things have gone awry at the f**king compound. Besides, Kerrick is doing just fine.”
He outmatched all the death vamps in preternatural speed, which meant nearly every thrust or slice of his sword counted. She let out a loud whoop. “Two more bastards down and he’s barely started.” There was nothing so fine as watching one of her Warriors of the Blood, all virile, muscled, highly sexed vampires, doing what he did best with a sword in hand. She drew deep breaths, all the while keeping Marcus in check.
“Turn me loose,” he shouted. “He can’t defeat them all.”
Endelle met Marcus’s gaze straight-on. “I thought you hated him, wanted to kill him.”
“Fuck you.”
Endelle smiled. She knew her men well. “You sure you’re ready to go back to work? You sure you’re strong enough after so much soft living on Mortal Earth?”
She watched a red haze slide over his eyes as his chin dipped. “Don’t I look ready to you?” He split his resonance three times.
Nice.
Again she smiled. He was almost as tall as Kerrick and as muscled. Of course he wouldn’t have let his training lapse. “I have to send Kerrick into the Trough and the moment I do, I need you ready to take on the rest of these motherfuckers. Keep as many of them from entering the Trough as you can. Have you got that?”
“Yes,” he growled.
From the vision in her mind, Leto continued to function separately from the battle. He shouted into his phone, once, twice. He made call after call, which all told her that something had gone wrong.
Thank you, Creator!
“On my mark, half a minute from now and not a second before. Do you understand? Will you obey because I’ll have your nuts if you don’t? Nod if you agree.”
She watched him draw a shallow breath. That was good enough for her.
She released his wrist and focused on Alison as well. She wished she could just fold Kerrick directly to her, but she’d be breaking a big rule. No resident of Second Earth could await an ascendiate on Mortal Earth while the mortal answered a call to ascension. If that rule wasn’t upheld, no powerful ascendiate would ever survive even the first three seconds after demonstrating preternatural power.
No. This was the way it was done.
She gave Kerrick a single mental warning then a damn solid shove with the powers the Creator had given her. Down he went through the dimension, flying, his kilt flapping like a black leather wing. At least he wouldn’t be conscious for the trip.
She shifted to the downtown alley, mentally charted his course, and had to laugh. Would you look at where he was going to land? How about that for f**king destiny. But boy, it was gonna hurt.