Moonlight(Pact Arcanum 3) (7 page)

“Layla, I know the two of you are having problems, but he deserves to know,” Scott said.

“No,” said Layla. “He is not ready to be a father, let alone the father of such an extraordinary child.”

“Layla,” Ana said gently, trying to be diplomatic, “do you honestly think you can hide this? He’s going to find out eventually. Don’t you think that you should be the one to tell him?”

Layla stood still in the center of the room. “Very well,” she said in a subdued voice. “I will tell him, but only after Nicholas addresses the higher powers on my behalf. Tobias should have all the answers before him when he learns of this.”

“Until then, we have to keep this quiet,” Take said. “We’ll send Toby on his assignment early, and then we’ll move ahead with the ritual. Hopefully, we’ll have some concrete data by the time he gets back.”

“We should see what we can learn about the baby by conventional means, as well,” Jeremy suggested.

“No Armistice doctor will be able to keep this under wraps, Jer,” Rory said. “It’s too unprecedented.”

“Then we’ll use a human doctor,” Nick said, with a hint of a smile.

Layla turned to face him. “Do you have someone in mind?”

“Yes,” Nick’s smile widened. “You’re family now. It’s time you met the rest of them.”

Oxford, England; The next morning

Andrea answered the door to find Toby on the other side. “Toby,” she said with raised eyebrows, “this is a surprise.”

Toby grinned at her. “You said I had a standing invitation.”

“So I did.” She smiled and held the door farther open for him to pass by. “Come in.”

Toby walked into the apartment, looking around casually to map out the entry points and lines of attack. Her place was small but neat. The walls were painted a restful light blue, and the furniture was well used. It looked like a home, not just a place to crash after school.

“Nice digs.”

Andrea closed the door behind him. “Thank you. I spend a lot of time here, so I try to make it comfortable.” She followed him into the main room. “Please, sit down and tell me what I can do for you.”

Toby took a seat on the couch. “It’s kind of hard to explain.”

She sat in a chair across from him. “Why don’t you start with what’s really going on?”

Toby scrunched his eyebrows. “Meaning what?”

“I am not stupid. My father and your brother had that secret meeting after the funeral. Now suddenly I have a Sentinel bodyguard. Don’t tell me that’s a coincidence.”

Toby leaned back into the couch and spread his arms out to either side. “You’re right, it’s not a coincidence. But your father made it clear that we weren’t to discuss it with you.”

She folded her arms and glared at him. “You’re here at my invitation, Toby, not my father’s. I expect you to be honest with me.”

“Andrea, I’m sorry, but I can’t discuss it.” He pondered what he could say without violating his orders. “All I can tell you is that your father asked us to put some stronger protection around you than humans could provide.”

“Protection.” She stared at him with narrowed eyes. “Is that why you’re here? To protect me?”

Toby met her gaze directly. “That’s part of the reason.”

“And the other part?”

Toby shrugged. “My life got complicated, and I needed a change of scene. You said I could visit, so here I am.”

She considered that. “Fair enough.” She got up and walked into the kitchen. “Do you like tea? You can’t get away from it around here. I was just about to make some when you knocked.”

“Sure.”

She came back with a tea service and two cups. After she poured the tea, she sat back, and they sipped at the hot drink. “So how is your life complicated?”

Toby broke off a piece of biscuit and chuckled. “You don’t want to hear about the soap opera that is my world, Andrea.”

“Try me,” she said with a smirk.

Toby looked at her more closely to see if she was joking. “Seriously?”

“Sure. The Armistice interests me. What goes on behind closed doors?”

“All right.” Toby took another a sip of his tea and ordered his thoughts. “It started at Nick’s wedding…”

New York City

Faith came back to her office and closed the door behind her. She silently regarded Nick and Layla for a long moment. “Somehow, I’m not surprised. What can I do for you, Nicholas?”

“We hoped you could help us,” Nick explained.

She frowned. “Couldn’t you at least pretend you didn’t have ulterior motives in coming to see me?”

Nick pursed his lips in mock confusion. “Would that make you respect me more, or less?”

She laughed and came forward to wrap him in a hug. “Don’t ever change.”

Nick embraced her. “I’m sorry I haven’t come to see you as often as I should, Faith.”

“You’re busy being a head of state.” She let go and walked around the desk to sit down. “I’m just a doctor, and look how much free time I have.”

Nick sat in one of the two chairs in front of the desk and motioned Layla to take a seat in the other. “That’s what we’re here about, actually. We need your professional opinion about something.”

She raised her eyebrows. “Nick, I’m an OB/GYN. How could I possibly help you professionally?”

“Dr. Jameson,” said Layla, “I realize we have not met formally since the wedding, but I have a problem that may lend itself to your expertise.”

She looked at Layla with an unreadable expression. “What kind of problem, Speaker Layla?”

“Are you aware that your younger brother and I were in a relationship?” Layla asked as she interlaced her fingers.

“Yes,” Faith replied. “He came by yesterday and told me. He said you broke up. And he told me why.”

“Indeed.” Layla steeled her composure at the obvious challenge. “I have since discovered that I am pregnant.”

Faith gave her a long, measuring look. Then she frowned at Nick. “Is this some kind of joke?”

Nick shook his head. “Nope. We’re still trying to figure out how it happened.”

“In the usual way, I imagine,” said Faith. She looked at Layla. “Didn’t the two of you take precautions?”

“No. There was no need,” Layla said. “We are immune to disease, and no vampire mating has been fertile in recorded history.”

Faith narrowed her eyes. “But it wasn’t a vampire mating, was it? It was a vampire/Sentinel mating. Have there been many of those since the start of the Armistice?”

Layla looked at her thoughtfully. “No. There is too much prejudice on either side. Matings between vampires and humans, or Sentinels and humans, are not uncommon, but to the best of my knowledge, there are only three vampire/Sentinel unions in the Armistice. Nicholas and Jeremy, Sean and Takeshi, are the only other cross-species metahuman mates that I know of.”

“What are you thinking, Faith?” Nick asked.

Faith looked at him. “You once said that Daywalkers can’t create new scions. Maybe they were just going about it the wrong way.”

“Be that as it may,” Layla said impatiently. “We wish to know what we can expect from this event, based on human experience.”

Faith focused all of her attention on the Daywalker. “May I ask you a personal question, Layla?”

“You may.”

“Have you told Toby, yet?”

Layla raised her head proudly. “I will tell him when I have complete information. Until then, it is a private matter, and I would have it remain so.”

Faith nodded. “All right. We’ll start with an ultrasound and go from there.”

CHAPTER 8

May 2042; Armistice Security Headquarters, Anchorpoint City, Colorado; Four weeks later

Nick looked down at the crystal chalice, following the runes with his eyes. “I’m impressed, Rory. You do good work. Are you sure the crystal matrix is aligned correctly?”

Rory slumped in his chair, exhausted. “Absolutely. The entire chalice is an unbroken carbon lattice.”

Take’s jaw dropped. “Are you saying that you made it out of diamond?”

Rory shook his head. “Natural diamonds have flaws. I constructed this one atom by atom to have a perfectly complete structure. The technique was lost when the founders slaughtered the Artificers back in the First Age, to prevent any further attempts to invoke the Pact Arcanum.”

“And now we plan to start the whole thing back up again,” Nick said bitterly.

Rory grimaced. “When we’re done here, I will destroy this one, and I’m the only person who still retains the knowledge of how to create them. The secret will be safe with me.”

“Then, we might as well get it over with,” said Nick. He picked up the chalice and set it down on the coffee table. He slashed his wrist with one talon and then directed the flow of blood into the bowl of the chalice until it was half-full. He healed the tear in his wrist and raised the chalice with both hands. Softly, he chanted the words of power he had stolen from Luscian’s memories, working the complex spell forms in his mind. The chalice blazed with multicolored light as he intoned the ancient spell. When he completed the invocation, he lifted the chalice to his lips and drank the mystically charged blood. After draining the chalice, he raised it again over his head, while he felt the spell wrap around him. Quickly but carefully, he recited the final incantation. His muscles went limp as he collapsed, paralyzed. The chalice fell to the floor and rolled away.

Rory knelt beside him. He picked up the chalice and bled off power from the Grace, channeling it into the crystal until it glowed brightly. Then he slammed it against the floor with his full strength. The crystal shattered, and the light of the released magic coalesced in the air before settling into Nick’s chest. Pulling Nick into his arms, Rory drove his fangs into the Daywalker’s neck and began to feed deeply, until Nick’s heart raced desperately, on the verge of giving out. When Rory drew back, the room froze, and there was silence.

Nick stood in spirit from the floor, unsurprised to look down on his own body, and waited. A pure white light suffused the room, the light that he had dreamt of so many times before, of what lay beyond the Gates of Morning.

A voice thundered in his mind. “Ask and ye shall receive.”

“I wish to speak to an agent of the White Wind,” said Nick.

“Then speak, Nicholas Magister Luscian. The Gates of Morning have opened to hear your petition. Ask and ye shall receive.”

“I want to know the nature of the child that grows in the womb of Layla Magister Curallorn, and I want to know your purpose in bringing it into existence.”

“That knowledge will be costly. Are you willing to pay the price required?”

“Name it.”

“Service.”

“What kind of service?”

“This child is a harbinger of things to come. You will stand as its teacher and guardian, its protector against all enemies, right or wrong, until such time as it chooses to release you. Say yes, and we will tell you all that you wish to know.”

“You want me to be its champion?” Nick asked, incredulous. “It’s Toby’s child. I would have protected it anyway.”

“Even so. The child will live beyond the span of years allotted to the father. You will be the father’s voice in its life, after the true father has gone to his reward.”

Nick swallowed in sudden fear. “Wait, are you saying that something is going to happen to Toby?”

“That question is beyond the scope of your petition, Nicholas Magister Luscian. You have no claim on that information.”

“Then I’m changing my damn petition!”

“Accurate knowledge of future events is forbidden to beings of your level of reality. If you pursue this petition, you will not be allowed to return to your plane.”

Nick scowled. “If I ask what happens to Toby, you’ll kill me?”

“Yes.”

Nick hesitated. “If I die here, will I be able to change Toby’s fate?”

“No.”

“What about if I go back? Will I be able to change it then?”

“The future is infinitely mutable. Your free will remains intact, as does his. Whether your brother survives what is coming will depend on his choices, as well as yours.”

“Then answer my original questions.”

“You may make only one petition and no other. Are you prepared to pay the price?”

“Yes.”

“The pact is made.”

Nick shuddered at the music of the voice, the notes reverberating against the memory of the Light that he carried within himself.

“Your brother’s offspring is the beginning of a new race, one that will lead the Children of Magic once the Red Wind is defeated. It is the first child of a union between the Sentinel Gift and the power you know as the Grace. It will be the future of your people once the Great Work is complete, and the Children of Darkness and the Children of Twilight cease to be.”

Nick remembered Faith’s words from the week before. “Is that why Daywalkers can’t create new scions?”

“Yes. The Red Wind is parasitic, creating life from death. The children of the White Wind may create life from life, but only when they meet as equals, together.”

“What about after the Red Wind is gone and the Gift becomes dormant?”

“The Grace and the full Gift will create life, whether or not the Gift is kindled.”

“We thought the Sentinels would cease to exist once the Nightwalkers were gone.”

“Once the Children of Darkness are removed from the field of play, the Children of Starlight will be the inheritors and caretakers of magic on your world. Then, and only then, will there be peace between the races.”

Nick took a deep breath and let it out. “Will the child be Sentinel or Daywalker?”

“The new race will be an amalgam of the most useful traits of each race. They will be strong like the Children of Twilight, but their free will shall remain unfettered. They will be long-lived like the Children of the Dawn, but they will retain their mortality. They will chart their own destiny from out of the ashes of your war. This is our gift to you, that you shall understand your legacy in taking up the protection of the one who will someday lead them.”

Nick kept silent for a long time, digesting the information. “I think I understand.”

“Then your questions have been asked and answered, Nicholas Magister Luscian. Your fealty is accepted. You are the child’s sword and shield from this moment forth. Go now, in peace, the way you came.”