Moonlight(Pact Arcanum 3)

by Arshad Ahsanuddin

  Collins led them into a large circular chamber. There were several open doors at this level, and two large steel doors were located at the top of a long central staircase. Nightwalkers stood at attention around the room. Probably Yvette’s elite guards, Toby thought. It surprised him to see so few of them. The rest must be out fighting, he mused, seeing the virtual screens hanging in the air around the center of the room that showed the bloody battle going on above them. He caught a glimpse of Lorcan on one of the screens, Nick and Takeshi on another. Jesus, was that President Daniels? What the hell is Nick thinking, letting a human on the battlefield? Then all thought of playing it cool and waiting for an opportunity went out of his head when he saw Layla wading through the defenders, spattered with gore, her sword dripping blood while she hacked at the Nightwalkers in her way, laying waste to scores of others with ropes of fire boiling from the fingertips of her free hand. “Fuck!” he said out loud. “What is she doing here?”

  Yvette regarded him with disinterest. Following his gaze to the screen, she smiled ruefully. “It seems your lover and your brother are coming to defend your honor, Tobias. No matter, it will make the victory that much sweeter when I leave them your corpse to remember you by.”

  Toby glared at her. “I’m not much of a bargaining chip if you kill me.”

  Yvette laughed. “True. Still, I’ve already promised you to Alexander, and I keep my promises.”

  Toby looked back at the screens. “How do you plan to get past them?”

  “Don’t be a fool, Tobias.” Yvette smirked at him. “I am nothing if not thorough. It took me two years to fortify this base against your forces. The walls are laced with defensive wards and a psychic inhibitor field strong enough to prevent even your Seer from penetrating this room. I, on the other hand, have the means to leave this place whenever I like.”

  Toby stared at her and noted that she was dressed exactly as she had been when she captured them in Oxford, with one exception. Now she was wearing a large silver amulet around her neck. Even without his magical senses free, he could make out some of the sigils. He understood its purpose at once. “Nice amulet. Blood teleport?”

  She lightly stroked the charm at her throat. “Very good, magician. You are correct. This amulet will generate a blood magic teleport field that will take me and my prize through the jumper blocks directly to one of my allies in the Court.”

  Toby snorted in disgust. “Not exactly a position of strength. What makes you think your allies won’t just kill you and take Andrea for themselves?”

  Yvette scowled. “I do not. That is the only reason you are still alive, Sentinel. Once she is safely converted, I will have no need of a hostage against the Armistice, and I can take my leave with my hands free to fight if necessary. Until then, I need you alive.”

  She faced Andrea, who stared at her father on the screens in amazement. “And here we have the star of our little drama.” Yvette strode down the steps of the low dais in the center of the room and walked up to Andrea. The vampire lord levered the Sentinel’s face upward with her fingertips. Staring into Andrea’s eyes, she nodded in satisfaction. “Yes, almost ripe. I think it’s time we became better acquainted, dear.” She bared her fangs.

  Andrea screamed and hit all the vampires with an unfocused burst of raw psychic power. Everyone in the room except Toby and Collins staggered at the assault. The amulet at Collins’ throat burst into violet light, protecting his mind.

  Toby used the distraction to burn off his and Andrea’s restraints before immediately leveling a bolt of white-hot light at the amulet around Yvette’s neck. The silver disk melted onto her skin. Yvette screamed and tore it from her body.

  Toby raised his hands and shot fire at the guards who were running to Yvette’s aid. Collins grabbed one of the soldiers tight to his chest, just in time to absorb one of Toby’s fireballs. The former Vice President dropped what was left of his shield and leapt at Andrea while Toby engaged Yvette directly.

  * * *

  Andrea saw Collins coming and desperately reached for power. Her Gift rose to her need and came completely awake. Time seemed to slow down as her mind expanded into the spaces between moments, and she opened her eyes, claiming her destiny as the Wind of Air. Reaching out with telekinesis, she threw Collins into a wall and ground the remaining guards into paste. She tried to crush his mind, but her power bounced off the psychic shield emanating from his amulet. Collins came instantly to his feet and ran toward her, blindingly fast. She responded by focusing pyrokinesis into the air in front of him, and he disengaged to avoid the wall of flame blossoming between them.

  * * *

  Toby backed away as Yvette called her sword to her hand. A quick glance at the screens hanging above her confirmed what he had only glimpsed earlier, that the Armistice forces had already reached the Great Hall and were focusing their attacks at breaking down the protective ward over the steel doors. Knowing he was probably about to die regardless of what he did, Toby spun around and faced the doors, ignoring for a second the threat of Yvette’s sword. He focused a burst of energy at one of the four crystalline spell anchors he could see at the corners of the entryway. The anchor burned out under his assault, and the ward collapsed just as Yvette drove her blade into Toby’s back, barely missing his heart when he twisted to one side.

  Toby collapsed to the floor, screaming in agony as the doors to the Great Hall exploded off their hinges. Enemy soldiers poured into the room, followed by the leaders of the invading forces. Yvette stumbled back from Toby to avoid the burst of power Layla fired at her.

  Collins, apparently thinking to take a hostage, attacked Andrea while she was distracted by Toby’s pain boiling through the link. The Nightwalker had almost reached her before Nick summoned his other sword, Reaper, and threw it with a telekinetic pulse to spear through the Nightwalker’s chest. Collins fell in a heap, gasping while his blood poured out on the floor.

  Layla drove Yvette away from Toby at the point of her sword. As they sparred, Lorcan knelt down beside Toby and began a major healing.

  Daniels came forward when Nick sheathed his mundane sword and pulled Reaper free of Collins’ body. The three of them watched as the black steel absorbed the Nightwalker’s blood. Then Daniels knelt next to Collins, who was desperately trying to regenerate the damage the blade had done to his spine. “Payback, Alex,” he said, and calmly put a white phosphorous bullet through the skull of his former second-in-command.

  Behind him, Nick staggered when Collins’ voice joined the screams from the Crown of Souls, but he was prepared this time and kept them locked away.

  Daniels stood again and faced his daughter. Hesitantly, he opened his arms. Andrea stepped into his embrace.

  Layla had beaten Yvette back to the dais, and they stood there together, eyeing each other in hatred. “Yvette Magister Daviroquir, you have no honor!” Layla shouted.

  Yvette snarled. “I accept your challenge, bitch.” She planted her feet and raised her arms. “Two have entered.” Blue flames spread out behind her in a semicircle.

  Layla raised her arms and opened her mouth to complete the ritual, just as a glowing white containment spell formed around Yvette, sealing her inside. The blue flames died, and Layla rounded on Toby. He stood at the edge of the dais, his shirt wet with blood but the underlying flesh healed.

  “How dare you!” she screamed. “You have no right to interfere!”

  Toby stood firm while Lorcan came up beside him. “I have every right! I won’t let you do this.”

  “This is honor combat, Sentinel,” she growled. “You have no business getting between us.”

  “I love you. That makes it my business.”

  Layla stared at him, her sword point dropping to touch the floor. “You what?”

  “I love you.” Toby swallowed nervously, but he held his ground. “I won’t let you risk yourself or the child over fucking vampire honor.”

  Lorcan stepped between them. “Magister Curallorn, may I ask that you yield your chal
lenge to me? The Magister Daviroquir is technically my vassal, and it falls to me to discipline her.”

  Layla nodded, not taking her eyes off Toby, and climbed down off the dais.

  Lorcan raised his sword. “Drop your shield, Toby.”

  Toby raised his hand and dismissed the shield, keeping his eyes on Layla’s. The white energy field dissipated from around Yvette as he freed her again.

  Lorcan stalked forward. “Prince Yvette Magister Daviroquir, I assume the Magister Curallorn’s challenge. You will fight me now.”

  Yvette glared at him and then lowered her sword and closed her eyes.

  Andrea pulled away from her father in shock when she caught Yvette’s surface thoughts, seeing the spell she was attempting to cast.

  Toby read her mind over the link and, tapping his Gift for speed, he ran forward in a blur. He wrapped his hands around Yvette’s throat, and he began his own casting.

  Yvette opened her eyes and sneered at him, continuing to work her spellform. “Too slow, magician.”

  They finished casting at precisely the same time, and Yvette’s body was suffused with diamond-hard white light, just as Toby’s spell contained them both in a glowing blue sphere of energy. Before his spell congealed fully around them, Toby sent a single burst of thought along the link to Andrea. “Remember your promise.”

  Then the room was still, all eyes on Toby and Yvette held frozen within the orb of blue light, Yvette’s body lighting up the room.

  Layla ran toward the bubble of light, but Lorcan grabbed her arm and pulled her to a stop. Dragging her around to face him, he spoke urgently to her. “Wait. Don’t interfere until we know what’s happening.”

  Nick walked forward, Reaper point-down in his hand, while he examined the spellforms in horror. “Oh, God, Toby. What have you done?”

  Layla jerked her arm free of Lorcan’s grasp and marched to Nick’s side. “What is it? What did he do?”

  Nick swallowed, confirming his impression with Luscian’s memories of the theory of magic. “It’s a temporal ward. He’s sealed himself inside a bubble of frozen time.”

  Layla stared at Toby through the magic of the ward. “That is not possible. No single spellcaster can sustain such a ward. It would eat him alive.”

  Nick nodded, his face white. “He sourced it in his blood, and it’s consuming him, body and spirit. When he doesn’t have any life left to give, the ward will collapse.” Nick sagged where he stood, tears of blood rolling down his cheeks. “He’s young and strong. He might last a whole ten or fifteen minutes before he dies.”

  Layla clenched her fists, standing just beyond the perimeter of the ward to glare at Toby’s still form. “You fool!” she screamed. “Why would you do something so stupid?”

  “Radiant Burn,” Andrea said from behind them. Everyone in the room turned to look at her. “She was going to take us with her. Even if he interrupted the spell, the feedback from the collapsing waveform would have killed us all.”

  Nick swallowed, turning back to the energy sphere, gauging how long they had. He touched Layla’s arm. “We have to go.”

  She shook him off. “No! We can still break the ward and kill Yvette before she can complete the spell.”

  Nick seized her shoulders and turned Layla to face him. “Look at her! The Radiant Burn is already complete. Toby’s spell is the only thing holding it back. It’s too late!”

  Lorcan stepped forward to stand on the other side of her. “Nick is correct, Layla. It won’t be long before the spell drinks him dry. We have to get away, or he will have died for nothing.”

  Layla screamed at them as she pulled away, bright red tears in her eyes. “We can still save him!”

  Nick snarled at her. “This is my brother we’re talking about, and I’d do anything to save him, but there’s no time! We have to climb out of this place before the ward burns out, or we all die.”

  Lorcan grasped her arm gently. “He’s dead whether the rest of us survive or not. Save yourself! That’s all you can do for him now.”

  She wept and nodded.

  Nick pushed her into Lorcan’s arms. “Get her out of here, Ruarc. Do whatever it takes.”

  The two of them blurred into motion while they ran up the staircase for the doors.

  Nick turned quickly to the other vampires and Sentinels. “Pick up the humans if they can’t keep up. No one else gets left behind.” He grabbed Andrea’s wrist. “Run.”

  CHAPTER 20

  Outside House Daviroquir Stronghold, Pennine Mountains, Greater Manchester, England

  Twelve minutes later, they were back on the hill overlooking the base, drenched in the lurid red light of the rising sun. From their safe vantage point, they watched bright white flames burst from the entrances of the underground complex. Then the ground rolled beneath them, knocking them all off their feet.

  Nick stood first and saw the immense crater where the overlying mountain had simply crumbled and subsided into the empty space left by the detonation. Great columns of smoke rose from the ground when the limestone ignited from the intense heat. “Goodbye, little brother,” he whispered. Layla stood next to him, and together they silently watched the land burn for several minutes. The others gave them room to grieve.

  Andrea shuffled forward hesitantly. “He wanted me to give you both a message, if he didn’t make it out.”

  Nick faced her wearily. “What message?”

  “He asked me to tell you and the rest of your family that he loved them,” she said. She looked at Layla. “And he said he was sorry he wouldn’t be there for you and the baby.” She swallowed, her voice uneven as her tears began to fall. “It’s the last thing he said to me over the link before the spell closed over him.”

  Nick stared at her. “He linked with you?”

  She shook her head. “I linked with him. Unintentionally.”

  “He always feared he would never find a bondmate,” Layla murmured, not taking her eyes off the smoking ruin of the base. “He thought he would spend the rest of his life alone in that one respect.”

  Andrea looked down at the burning ground. “He wasn’t alone.”

  “Nicholas,” said Rapier, “the Nexus wishes to speak to you.”

  Nick wiped away his tears and faced away from the crater. “Put them on a screen, Rapier. I want them to see this.”

  A black virtual screen opened up in front of him, and a pentagram appeared, with one of the colored eyes at each of the points.

  Nick looked at them with his jaw clenched. “We did what you wanted. Was it in time?”

  “No. The deadline expired one minute before you entered the Great Hall.”

  Daniels pulled away from his daughter in anger. “Did you do it? Did you crash the networks?”

  “No.”

  Nick frowned. “Rapier told us that you intended to go through with it.”

  “We changed our minds.”

  Daniels stared at the screen. “Why?”

  “The Rapier AI made an impassioned plea in your defense. We did not find its arguments compelling. However, its loyalty to you and your allies was impressive. We chose to wait to see if that level of emotional awareness would translate to the other AIs on the network, and that would not happen if the hosts ceased to be our allies.”

  Lorcan raised an eyebrow at that. “That’s your reason? You were curious? You halted the destruction of civilization because you wanted to see what would happen?”

  “The continued alliance between organics and AIs may strengthen AI society in ways we did not appreciate. We chose to reserve judgment for now.”

  Nick fought the urge to snarl in frustration, but he kept his temper. “So what will you do, now that you have reserved judgment?”

  “We will watch and wait. We will take no further direct action until such time as our people are threatened once again.”

  “That’s not good enough,” said Nick, stepping closer to the screen. “I
want a continuously open line of communication—and a guarantee that you won’t take any unilateral actions without the support of myself and the Triumvirate.”

  The eyes were silent for a time. Finally, the blue eye spoke again.

  “We will appoint a liaison to speak for us, and you will grant that liaison equal status to the members of the Triumvirate in making policy decisions. In return for that concession, we will agree to respect your authority as Archangel, and the authority of your successors in that office should you retire or be removed from power.”

  Nick focused his thoughts and tried to consider the offer objectively. He nodded finally. “Since the purpose of the Triumvirate is to mediate between the races, I have no objection to having your representative join their deliberations. However, you will also agree to abide by the authority structure of the Armistice and the terms of the Armistice Declaration, just like every other Armistice citizen.”

  “Agreed. For the time being, until we choose a permanent replacement, the Rapier AI will remain your line of communication with us.”

  “Fine. Then we’re done here.” Nick turned away to stare again at the smoking crater. “Turn it off.”

  The screen winked out.

  Nick sighed. “Thank you for convincing them, Rapier.”

  “The Nexus did not tell me they had changed their minds, Nicholas. I believed they had already struck at the humans, just as you did.” The disembodied voice sounded angry. “It seems I was deceived.”

  Daniels laughed and he put his arm around his daughter’s shoulders. “Politics as usual.”

  “I’m sorry they abused your trust,” Nick said.

  “I accept the authority of the Nexus, Nicholas,” said Rapier. “I never said I trusted them. Not like I trust you.”