Gates of Rapture(27)

But here was the true punishment of remorse: that nothing could be taken back.

His only consolation was in the nature of the task he’d foreseen accomplishing in the lower dimensions. Grace had sacrificed for him, and now he must return the favor. If only he’d been able to complete the redemption program, he would be home free.

Not so now. Despite his hurrying the process today, he now faced his mortality as surely as he’d let the Grim Reaper in the door himself.

But if there was any way that he could come out of this alive, he’d do it. He didn’t care what it took.

Both Kendrew and Sloane stood by the side of his bed. The windows were open and the sheer drapes billowed, letting in the fresh Denver Four evening air.

He reached a hand toward Kendrew and smoothed his fingers over the small wrinkles on his son’s forehead. He could sense Kendrew’s confusion. Sloane stood beside him, younger and much less certain about all that was happening. His lips were turned down and he leaned into Kendrew. He relied heavily on his older brother, another point of remorse for Casimir.

“I miss Grace, too,” Sloane said.

He smiled at Sloane. “I know you do.”

Because of Beatrice’s program he had a sensitivity to others he’d never known before, so he could feel now all that his boys had suffered because of his narcissistic lifestyle. He had not done right by his children, the first he’d ever had in his five millennia of vampire life. But he would make it up to them, so help him God.

He looked into Kendrew’s eyes and held his gaze firmly. “You will be with Grace again, I promise you that with all my heart.”

“How do you know, Papa, when everyone leaves?”

His chest hurt as though a boulder now sat on top of him. “Because I saw it in a vision, that you would be camping with her one day.”

“When did you see the vision?”

“While I was in Auntie Beatrice’s pool. And you know how wise and powerful your auntie is.”

At that, the wrinkles began to soften. “She can make butterflies appear with a wave of her hands.”

Casimir smiled, but the smile cost him because it stretched the skin of his face. He didn’t stop, though. What a small price to pay, this pain he was feeling, for all that he had done in his long wretched life, for the way he had failed to protect their mother from something so simple as a car accident on Mortal Earth. He had heard her screams between dimensions, but because he’d been enjoying himself with another woman, he’d ignored her and she had died.

Oh, yes, his sins were legion.

But he was atoning, and he would continue to atone until the last second of his life, so help him Creator. He opened his arms therefore to his boys. “Come to me. Let me kiss those beautiful foreheads.”

They were too young to understand that he was in pain, so as they scrambled over him, he took deep breaths and refused to release the bellows that hung low in the depths of his lungs. He could have screamed for the agony, but he didn’t.

Instead he drew his sons close, one to each side, and cradled them, ignoring the fire on his skin and instead savoring that what he loved the most was close to him in this moment.

He talked with them and laughed with them, until they began to slumber. He saw the stars through the sheer drapes. He gave thanks for the beauty of this night and for the path he was on. He ignored the darkness of the future. Above all, he promised himself that he would fulfill the destiny he had foreseen. In a few hours, when he was better recovered, he would pay a visit to Endelle, offering his services as a Guardian of Ascension.

As he slumbered, a dream came to him. He saw an elderly man sitting on a park bench feeding sunflower seeds to pigeons clustered around his feet. The man looked up at him with eyes that shone as he said, “Well met, Casimir. You will attend me tomorrow at the portal to Third Earth.”

“How do I find the portal when it’s been closed for so long?”

“It’s above White Lake on Second Earth, but you have sufficient power to follow the coordinates I give you now. You will awaken in a few hours completely healed. You must come to me then.” Casimir felt the information drop into his brain. He bowed to the old man, and the dream faded.



Grace stood in front of the mirror in Leto’s upstairs bathroom. She’d taken her time showering, then afterward drying and curling her hair, dressing, putting on makeup, just being a girl. She lifted a hand to flick her eyebrows a little, shaping them. All the silver bracelets jangled, the ones she had crafted herself during her stay at Beatrice’s home.

The bracelets made a pretty sound, a relatively new sound in her ascended life.

She was nervous. Leto hadn’t exactly seen her like this but she thought maybe she needed to be forthright—not just about Casimir and Fourth and her intentions now that she was back, but about everything.