Free Burning Skies by Caris Roane Page B

moment, his expression inscrutable. He then cleared his throat. He glanced at Luken. Havily’s gaze followed. The warrior’s eyes were closed.
    “He must be exhausted,” she whispered.
    “Yeah,” Medichi said, his voice low as well. “I guess I’d better hunt down my bed. I’ll be battling by eight.” He turned to her. “I’m always here for you, Hav, you know that, right?”
    She nodded. “You’re the best, Antony.”
    *   *   *
     
    Eldon Crace, High Administrator of Chicago Two, minion to his deity, Commander Darian Greaves, had muscles on his muscles now. Oh … yeah.
    And, shit yes, sweat poured off him in streams, but not because of fear like it used to. Now he sweat because he pumped iron several hours a day and because he’d built himself a goddamn righteous forge, the old-fashioned kind, deep in the heart of Greaves’s compound. He never wore a shirt, just a black leather kilt and warrior battle sandals.
    Decades ago, before his ascension to Second Earth, he had worked for a smithy in rural Indiana. He had always enjoyed the nature of the work, taking metal, heating it up until it glowed red, then pounding it into whatever shape he wanted. The metaphor pleased him immensely.
    Horseshoes then.
    Manacles now.
    A few months ago, shortly after he’d been introduced to the exquisite properties of dying blood, he’d constructed the forge deep within the Commander’s compound, well into the belly of the earth, on the lowest level not far from the vast room used to test all manner of weaponry, including incendiary bombs.
    He had labored hard over the forge. The ventilation alone had been one bitch of a challenge. Because the compound existed beneath the Commander’s famous peach orchard, the ducting had to be routed a good mile from his current position.
    But he’d gotten it done and now he had a proper workstation.
    Sometimes life’s simplest pleasures were the best.
    He could think in the space he’d created for himself. Right now he pounded the hell out of a strip of glowing red metal the old-fashioned way, on an anvil, beating it so that it would fit the small wrist of a woman. Yes, his newly emerging death vampire nature had strong appetites and by God he indulged them.
    For one thing, he really liked keeping his blood donors close at hand.
    He glanced to his right, and desire flowed down his chest and into his abdomen, then low into his groin. A mortal woman hung from her manacled wrists, her dark eyes blank now from her new reality, her body a sagging weight barely supported by watery knees. He liked his donors weakened through the trauma and sheer fatigue of hanging from manacles. He liked his women worn out when he was ready to take what he’d earned. He also liked them draped in white gauze, a sacrificial symbol that pleased his vampire soul.
    He laid a message over the mortal’s mind: Your life gives me life and for that you are blessed.
    He enjoyed delivering false hope. Her gaze flickered toward him, despair giving way to possibilities. But his sudden burst of laughter drew the blank stare once more as she looked away, her body sagging a little more.
    She would feed not only him this night but also several of his personal attendants, those death vampires he’d recruited to serve as his guards and general lackeys.
    He often did the hunting for his blood donors by himself, slipping quickly down to Mortal Earth before Central’s grids could happen upon his powerful signature. Other times, he would take his squad with him. He had sufficient advanced power to fold them straight to Mortal Earth, which would keep them off Endelle’s Central grid for a good long while.
    He knew how the grids worked. They scanned back and forth looking for the signature of the death vampire, but Metro Phoenix took in a vast section of real estate and so far, in the past four months, he and his squad hadn’t been caught once.
    God, he loved his life, a new life, the life his master had given him when