As she pondered what had to be the hardest decision of her life, she watched the triad pull together. Only by shifts of shoulders and arches of necks could she see the early part of the process. Once Grace took possession of Fiona, the earth-based power rumbled and began to stream, a silver river of energy above them.
Greaves reached the bank and started to rise to his feet, even with all the deep pits and rivulets of blood. Fiona turned in his direction. The next moment he lay flat on the grassy bank, a beautiful gold, red, and blue field of energy pinning him down.
Endelle turned away from the flotilla, rising higher into the air. She needed to think.
The lake was full mostly of dead or dying death vampires. Colonel Seriffe and Thorne had trained the warriors well.
Even the Third Earth death vampires were dead. Santiago flew above their bodies. She could sense that he was stationed there to make certain they didn’t have an unknown power to rise. If any of them did, he was ready with his ruby dagger in one hand and sword in the other.
The rest of the sky was full of Militia Warriors patrolling back and forth. Occasionally she could spot her Warriors of the Blood. Just a few knots were still battling over the lake far to the south.
Retrieval boats zoomed past below, and by order, Militia Warriors flew down to escort them in case any of the death vampires in the water weren’t really dead.
She began to feel weary in her new form. Of course all her battle adrenaline was gone. She even felt a pressing need to get to solid ground and morph back to her ascended form.
She returned to Greaves’s position, created some mist, and went through another painful morphing process.
By the time she was done, she had little energy to do more than sit in her flight suit and stare into Greaves’s eyes.
He had changed as well, but his body, as to be expected, was pitted in many places to the bone. Even parts of his skull were exposed. He lay na**d and trembling, his eyes full of pain. But he was healing, that much was clear to her.
“I’ll give you the choice, Greaves. We can try you at COPASS in Prague for war crimes that Marcus has well documented and to which many, many people will testify and for which you will undoubtedly be executed. Or I can send you to Fourth, to your mother, and to the redemption pools. Which will it be?”
He lay shaking as he closed his eyes. She knew him. He was one manipulative bastard and was no doubt trying to figure out which course of action would give him the best advantage going forward.
When he finally opened his eyes, he sent, Beatrice.
“As you wish.” She focused her thoughts on Fourth Earth. She and Beatrice had been friends for millennia. When she gave Beatrice the news, the woman grew very silent.
Endelle added, You have Grace to thank for intervening.
I am coming to you returned to her, and a split second later Beatrice appeared in an elegant peach-silk gown and beautifully coiffed red hair, looking as Grecian as ever. She nodded to Endelle, but it was to Grace that she said a soft thank-you.
She waved her hand over the monster that had tormented Second Earth for so long. He now wore a long white robe. Endelle was just about to have obsidian flame release the energy field when Beatrice took him exactly how he was, prone and caught by the field.
Endelle sat with her hands clasped around her knees. She was exhausted from morphing and trying to stay alive as she battled Greaves. Her hip ached where he’d struck her.
And now he was gone, taken away to Fourth in an energy field.
She couldn’t believe it. After all this time, after centuries of being unable to deal effectively with Greaves, suddenly he was just gone.
She hardly knew what to think or to feel.
She remained on the bank of White Lake and watched her team perform all that they needed to do. The speedboats rescued dozens of wounded Militia Warriors from the waters, those who had been injured during battle against the death vampires. The healers moved from boat to boat and worked on the injured.
The September sun rose high in the sky, shining down on the great victory over White Lake. Her Warriors of the Blood remained in the sky, moving back and forth, helping where each was needed. Thorne floated in the sky twenty yards away, fully in command, speaking into his headset almost constantly as he directed the show.
In stages, she began to relax. The scourge of Second Earth was gone and would never be back.
She tried to figure out what she was feeling. Much to her surprise, she was at peace.
There would be work still to do in the future. At the very least, she would need to start negotiations with Greaves’s generals, to do all that she could to end the possibility that one or all of them would decide to pick up where Greaves had left off.
But beyond that, her Warriors of the Blood as well as her Militia Warriors would continue to hunt down the last of the death vampires until Second Earth was free of their horrifying and constant threat. Without Greaves to create new death vampires as he had been doing all these centuries, the threat would diminish day by day.
When at last she made it back to the palace, having left White Lake in Thorne’s oh-so-capable hands, she walked into her sitting room and found Braulio seated in the farthest oversized purple velvet chair.
“You did good, Endelle.”
“I did, didn’t I?”
He smiled, and she held her hand out to him. “Come make love to me, and afterward, I want to sleep for about a century.”
He rose from his chair, and as he moved toward her, he said, “I’ve been waiting for this day for the last five thousand years.”
A family is a fluid thing,
Changing shape with each birth and each death.
Take care to celebrate the simple joys of each day.
—Collected Proverbs, Beatrice of Fourth
Chapter 22
A week after the battle over White Lake, Grace sat several yards away from an enormous bonfire smack in the middle of the desert. Marguerite had suggested the gathering for fun, as well as to celebrate that Second Earth had a new future.
Grace had her arm around Thorne’s and leaned her head against his shoulder. She sighed. She swore her happiness knew no bounds. Leto was checking on Kendrew and Sloane and would return anytime. Casimir had returned to Fourth to continue his journey through the redemption pools but had left his sons in Leto and Grace’s care. He would be returning at least once a week to spend a few hours with them and to reassure them that he was still alive and would be a proper father to them once he had completed Auntie Beatrice’s special healing program.
The boys were confused but not nearly as agitated as Grace had seen them in former times. Leto had proved to be quite good with them, so that even he was gaining favor.