Wings of Fire

He nodded. “Let’s get the hell out of here. One of the death vamps sent for reinforcements.”



The next thing Parisa knew, she stood in the middle of a rotunda, the one where she’d had her ascension ceremony. Her hand still shook, but she clutched her dagger hard in her fist.



The dagger was bloody and so was her fist.



The funny thing was … the funny things was … she didn’t react the way she’d expected. She’d thought she would feel dizzy, feel a need to vomit again, become hysterical. Instead her heart had settled down, and little by little her nerves grew steadier.



She held her free hand out and pictured Antony’s sink in his master bathroom. She saw the black washcloth and thought the thought.



A vibration passed first through her mind, then her body. The next moment, like magic, she held the washcloth in her hand. She’d accomplished another first—she’d folded something from one location to another.



“Jesus,” Antony whispered. He now stood next to her. “You just folded that from where? My bathroom?”



“Yes,” she responded. She wiped down the dagger very carefully. Santiago had given her the blade, and it was razor-sharp. She wiped until there wasn’t a speck of blood on either edge or the point of the blade, then shoved it back into the space on her weapons harness. She stared at the hilt. The dagger had Santiago’s signature, a small ruby embedded near the base of the hilt. She touched it, rubbed it, and was so glad she’d taken the time to learn a skill that apparently she was really good at.



But there was more, and she drew her shoulders back. She looked up at Antony. He stared at her hard.



“You aren’t upset, are you?”



She shook her head. “No. I’d like to think that it will hit me later but I don’t think it will.”



“I’ve trained a lot of Militia Warriors over the centuries, tens of thousands of them. I’ve been with most of them after battle. Shit, Parisa, you’re a goddamn warrior.”



She nodded. She smiled. “Even though I almost threw up?”



“As I said, we’ve all done that a few times.”



“Over the centuries.”



“Yes.” He took her hands in his and held them aloft, glancing from one set of fingers to the other then back. “You’re as calm as anything right now.”



“I know. Is it because I downloaded your battle memories? Am I feeling what you feel?”



He shook his head. “I don’t think so … but I would never have thought this of you. You’re a goddamn librarian.”



She chuckled. “I know. With too big a chest to handle weapons with ease.”



He laughed and then he drew her into his arms and hugged her. She released a sigh. Was this possible?



But as he kept his arms around her and she shifted her head, she caught sight of Fiona, who met her gaze. The woman’s expression was … blank. She had her arms around another of the blood slaves, a small woman whose stomach … oh, God, she was pregnant. Maybe five or six months by the look of her. Tears streamed down her face.



“I have to go to them,” she said.



“Yes. Go,” Antony said.



She looked up at him and he nodded, a frown between his brows. He shifted his gaze to Fiona and the woman. He drew in a stream of air. “Shit. She’s pregnant.”



“I know.”



Parisa approached the pair and dropped to her knees in front of them. She had forgotten how beautiful Fiona’s eyes were, slightly upturned and silvery blue, the color of Christmas ornaments. Her chestnut hair hung past her shoulders. “You found us,” she said, but her cheeks had a sunken appearance and her complexion was very pale. She had been drained and revived how many days ago?



“Of course we did.”



“What happened the first time? Why were they waiting for you? I wanted to tell you but I couldn’t. I’d been drugged.”



“I know. It’s okay. They knew we were coming because Commander Greaves has a voyeur-link with me but we figured it out and played him.”



Fiona nodded, her hand moving in slow motion up and down the woman’s shoulder.



Parisa glanced at her. “How long has she been in the facility?”



“Three days.” She hugged her closer, kissed the top of her head. The woman burrowed her face into her neck. Her tears hadn’t stopped.



“Can you tell me, Fiona, whether or not you’re ascended? You said you were from Boston—was that Mortal Earth?”



“I was taken from Mortal Earth, and the best I can figure is that we’re all partially ascended. We can survive on Second Earth, but none of the blood slaves has ever had vampire fangs.” She looked around. “I was kind of hoping that there was another woman already here, waiting for us. She was Tibetan and she wore a bracelet with her name printed in English letters—Dohna? Did you find her in Toulouse?”



Parisa’s shoulders sagged. “I’m so sorry, but she died that day. She was gone by the time we got there. I’m so sorry.”



Fiona looked beyond Parisa’s shoulder, but not at anything in particular. “I lost so many over the years,” she murmured. “Hundreds over the decades.” She blinked then glanced around. “So where exactly are we? What is this place?”



“Madame Endelle’s palace?”



Her eyes widened. “You mean the palace of the Supreme High Administrator?”



Parisa nodded.



“Well, that is something.” She looked around once more, still stroking the woman’s arm. “She’s not here then?”



Parisa turned and ran her gaze through the room as well. “No, but you won’t mistake her when she arrives. She’s very tall, imposing, and…” She struggled for the right word. “… fashion-challenged.”



Fiona didn’t smile, she just nodded. “Can you tell me something? What are these men exactly? They … well, they’re all so big.”



“Warriors of the Blood.”



Once again her eyes widened. “You mean, the Warriors of the Blood, the ones known as Guardians of Ascension of Second Earth, came to get us out of that place?”



At this point, Parisa realized that the pregnant woman had finally grown quiet. She was watching Parisa carefully from red-rimmed eyes and a swollen nose.



Parisa couldn’t help but smile, though, at Fiona’s astonishment. Maybe Fiona could be awestruck, but Parisa’s introduction to the warriors, especially Medichi, had been so, well, earthy, that she couldn’t summon the same kind of hero worship. “Why shouldn’t the warriors have come for you?”



“Well, I’ve known for decades that they were all that stood between Greaves and a takeover not just of Second Earth but of Mortal Earth as well. Knowing that they took the time to rescue us—that’s something. I won’t soon forget this.”



Parisa thought of Jean-Pierre and of his certainty that this woman was his breh. She wondered what Fiona would say to that if she knew. She’d probably be stunned.



Still, it was hardly something she needed to share immediately, and she did want to tell Fiona about the Warriors of the Blood. “They’re good men. Honorable. They didn’t know, none of us knew, that Greaves was doing this, enslaving women to provide dying blood for his death vampires. Although it certainly makes sense. But though there have been rumors for decades, until you somehow escaped the basement that day and came to me while I sat beneath the tamarind tree, Greaves and Rith had kept his operation a secret.”



Fiona nodded, tears in her eyes. “Thank you, Parisa. Thank you for coming for me. I would have died soon. I know that now. I really had lost all hope. But why were you there in that garden, held prisoner in that house? When I saw you, I thought you were Rith’s wife or something.”



At that, Parisa laughed. “Oh, God no. He abducted me from Warrior Medichi’s villa three months ago. I was as much a captive as you. I just wasn’t being used as a blood slave.”



“A blood slave.” Her gaze grew unfocused again. And once more she looked around. She frowned slightly.



Parisa turned to see what she was looking at. Ah, Jean-Pierre, and he didn’t look happy. His arms were crossed over his chest, his brows low on his forehead.



Fiona glanced at Parisa then back to Jean-Pierre. She asked very quietly, “Do you know why that warrior is staring at me? He looks angry.”



Yes, he was angry, and yes, Parisa knew why he stared at Fiona, but she wasn’t about to start explaining the breh-hedden to the recently freed captive.



However, there was one truth she could relay. “We have all been so worried about you and the other women, especially when we found that your Dohna had not survived. Warrior Jean-Pierre took it especially hard. He was there when Rith folded you out of the back bedroom in France. He’s been furious since that he couldn’t prevent it.”



“Where were we just now, that house I mean?”



“Would you believe outside the capital of New Zealand Two?”



For some reason Fiona laughed. “How strange.”



“How long had you been in Burma? In that house?”



“Always.”



“You mean all these years, all these decades, that’s all you’ve ever known?” She was shocked.



Fiona nodded. “We were allowed exercise in the garden until, well, three months ago.”



“When I arrived.”



“So it would seem.”



“Fiona, how on earth did you survive? I felt like I was going mad.”



She shook her head back and forth. “I don’t know. For a long time I held out hope that I would see my family again, my husband, my two children. The day I … begged for your help would have been my daughter’s birthday. I went crazy. I knocked one of the medical technicians out cold and escaped to the garden and there you were. They put me through death and resurrection right after as a punishment. It was too soon, only two weeks, it was hard to survive—”



“I know. I watched. I didn’t expect you to come back from that.”