Sunrise(Pact Arcanum 2) (42 page)

Nick began walking back to his car.

With a snort, Deaver pulled the trigger.

Instantly, Lorcan emerged from behind a shroud of invisibility and slipped his right index finger between the hammer and the chamber of the revolver, simultaneously reaching around with his left hand to casually snap the drug dealer’s forearm like a toothpick.

Deaver howled in pain, and the gun slipped from his nerveless fingers. Lorcan caught it, uncocked the hammer, and dropped it to the ground. The Nightwalker grasped the front of Deaver’s shirt and pulled him in close, growling. As his eyes shifted to red, Lorcan unsheathed his fangs. “Run, little man,” he said in a deep, reverberating voice. “If you hide well, maybe I won’t hunt you down tonight. I may even let you live.” Then he pushed the human away.

Deaver ran.

Lorcan watched until he was out of sight then approached Nick, who had walked back to retrieve the money from off the ground. “What the hell are you doing? If I hadn’t been following you, he would have shot you in the back!”

Nick tapped the bills into a square pile, which he slipped into his jacket next to the envelope of cash. “He couldn’t have killed me with just a bullet, Ruarc.”

Lorcan snarled. “And how would you have explained that to the police?”

Nick laughed. “Police? In this neighborhood?”

Clenching his fists, Lorcan stalked closer to Nick. “He would have exposed you, Nicholas. How did you think you were going to cover it up? Were you going to erase his memory while you were lying on the ground with a hole in your head?”

Nick shrugged. “If he’d actually shot me, I would have killed him.”

Lorcan stared at him. “You’re talking about committing a class-one breach, as if it was nothing. Armistice Security would have executed you on the spot.”

Nick smiled and lightly stroked Lorcan’s cheek. “Only if you turned me in, lover.”

Lorcan moved away from his touch. “Nick, I know you’ve been through an ordeal, but—” That was as far as he got before Nick’s fist connected with his chin in a blur of motion, even to vampire senses. Lorcan was thrown off his feet, landing on his back about six feet away. He lay there, dazed, tasting the blood from his shattered jaw. As the fragments of tooth and bone realigned themselves to heal the damage, he shuddered with pain. Finally, he opened his eyes again. Nick stood over him, his eyes red with rage.

“You don’t know anything, Ruarc.” Nick yelled. “You don’t know what I went through, and you certainly don’t know me anymore. I don’t need your pity, and I don’t need you.”

Lorcan climbed slowly to his feet and inhaled deeply. “Goodbye, Nicholas.” He closed his eyes and jumped away.

Alone, Nick stood in the center of the vacant lot and seethed. “I don’t need any of you,” he said quietly. Then he walked back to his car, mentally sifting through the list of contacts he had plucked from Deaver’s mind. One of them would have what he needed. He was sure of it.

CHAPTER 55

July 2039; Los Angeles, California; One month later

Rory pulled off his headset and threw it across the room in disgust. “Well, that was crap.”

Scott cued up the playback again. “Do you think maybe if we—”

“Don’t bother!” Rory was already regretting his decision to produce the Journeymen’s new album, but Scott had begged him to help keep Nick in line. “Nick might as well be on another planet for all the good he’s doing you. He hasn’t paid attention to his marks at all since we started recording, and he acts like he can barely remember how to play the guitar anymore. The engineers are already talking about quitting, and Nick doesn’t even care.”

“You know what he went through,” Scott pleaded. “He deserves a little slack, don’t you think?”

“Your record label already cut Nick all the slack they were willing to give, even after I fed them a story about a motorcycle accident. You only have until August to put a demo together before they cancel your studio time. Do you have any idea how much you’ll forfeit in penalties if you can’t get this album together on time?”

“Then maybe we need a new label,” Scott said belligerently.

Rory shook his head. “Your contract is good for another year, and they don’t make a dime if they let you out of it. Just watch. They’ll sue you for breach as soon as the deadline passes. It’s the only way to make any more money off you.”

“That’s just great,” Scott said with a sour expression. He checked his watch. “We might as well give this song another try. Any idea where Nick wandered off to?”

Rory snorted. “Who knows? We might not see him again for hours if yesterday was anything to go by.”

Scott winced at the memory of Nick walking into their recording session after a three-hour lunch break. He’d calmly listened to the engineers scream at him for wasting their time, then yawned and walked out again. Scott had never seen anything like it in the two decades he’d known Nick. Sure, the Daywalker could be a
prima donna
occasionally, when the mood took him, but he had always been serious about his music.

Scott had begun to think that Nick hadn’t come back at all from the coma, although the doctors assured them he had made a full recovery, at least physically. Mentally, the shift in his personality was totally foreign to Scott’s experience. Whatever happened to Nick on the
Angelus
, it robbed him of his best friend. Nick treated him like a business partner, and right now, Scott didn’t give a damn about their business. All he wanted was his dyad brother back.

Idly, Scott tapped into the link, expecting to find Nick’s mind closed off and hidden. He was completely unprepared to find himself looking through Nick’s eyes as the vampire leaned forward and snorted a line of white power through a straw. The rush of adrenaline that burned through his mind nailed Scott down in his seat, and he shuddered at the euphoria boiling off Nick’s psyche until the initial high subsided.

“WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT?”
he screamed out loud.

Rory jumped in his seat. “What’s wrong?”

Two floors below them, Nick frowned into the restroom mirror, enabling Scott to see his expression.
“Scott, a little privacy, please.”
Using a razor blade, he began scraping the powder back into a small vial.

Scott’s horror bled through his mental shields to saturate the link.
“What are you doing?”

Nick screwed the top back on the vial.
“I’m getting through the day. Now, we should get back to work. I’ll be up in few minutes.”
The mask came down and the link was severed.

“What’s going on, Scott?” Rory frowned.

Scott scrambled to his feet, his fists balled up in fury. “Stay here,” he said through gritted teeth. He barreled through the door of the recording booth and ran down the hall, roaring with rage as he tapped his Gift for speed. People stumbled out of his way in surprise as he blurred into motion at the limits of his Sentinel agility, weaving through the densely populated halls.

Rory ran after him, planting a recall meme in the minds of the spectators as he went, wiping their memories of the past five minutes. He caught up when the Water Sentinel bolted down the stairs to the second floor. Together, they ran side by side down the hall, Rory projecting a psychic command that drove the humans to clear the area. Scott didn’t even slow down as he slammed a door off its hinges with his open palm.

Nick looked up expectantly as the door crashed into the far wall. He calmly finished washing his hands and grabbed a couple of paper towels from the dispenser. “I said I’d be up in a couple of minutes, Scott.”

Scott’s eyes turned gold with vertically slitted pupils. Simultaneously, his teeth lengthened into long, pointed fangs. “Give it to me, Nicholas!” He held out his hand, now equipped with retractable claws. “Now! Or I swear I’ll hurt you.”

Nick wiped his hands and casually tossed the paper towels in the trashcan. “You can’t hurt me, Scott. No one can.”

Scott snarled. “Nick, let me help you.” He could feel his fury rising as his thought patterns adjusted to the form he was emulating. Another minute and he’d lose control of the situation. “Where are the drugs?”

Nick reached into his pocket and took out the vial. He placed it gently down next to the sink. Then, his eyes red and his fangs extended, he smirked. “If you can reach it, you can have it.”

Scott bellowed and leapt forward, claws extended, his control snapping. Ducking under Scott’s body, Nick threw himself upward and backward, slamming into Scott’s midsection and diverting the Water Sentinel’s forward momentum into a crazed somersault. His dyad brother went flying end over end to crash into the far wall.

Rory launched a containment spell at Nick while Scott dragged himself upright. To avoid it, Nick hit the floor and rolled, coming to his feet again in a smooth motion, his lips already halfway through the spell he was casting. Rory dropped to his knees, beneath the horizontal plane of green flames that burned through the space where he had been standing. The spell charred the metal doorframe and set fire to the walls on either side.

Then both Scott and Rory collapsed, writhing in agony as Nick projected his memory to them both, submerging them in his perfect recollection of the half hour he had spent on the
Angelus
. Nick watched them shudder on the floor for several minutes and then picked up the vial and slipped it into his pocket. “I think we’re done for today.” He stepped over Rory’s prone form and walked to the door, ignoring the flames and the sound of the fire alarm in the background. “Call me when you want to get together again.”

“Wait,” gasped Rory, trying to focus his thoughts. Scott, he could see, had passed out completely. “Don’t walk away from us. This isn’t you, Nicholas.”

Nick gazed down at him, his face empty of expression. “It is now,” he said bleakly. Then he turned and walked out, his form obscured by the fire and smoke, as if he were descending into hell.

Rory pulled the unconscious Sentinel into his arms and teleported away just as the ceiling collapsed in flames.

CHAPTER 56

August 2039; Anchorpoint City, Colorado; Two days later

“He’s completely out of control!” Scott paced back and forth in Take and Rory’s quarters. “If you hadn’t pushed the humans into leaving before the fight, there’s no telling how many people he could killed when the building burned down.”

“At least the
force majeure
clause got you out of your contract with the record label for a while.” Takeshi spoke up from his seat on the white leather couch. He took a sip of his tea, savoring the taste. “You still have a little breathing room before they expect Nick to show up at work.”

“He’s a drug addict.” Scott’s expression was dour. “All the signs were there, if I had been paying attention. Even if I had another year, I might not be able to dry him out in time to save our careers.”

Rory, sitting at the dining room table, said nothing.

“But that’s not the issue,” Scott continued. “What do we do about Nick? We can’t just sit back and watch him throw his life away.”

“After everything he’s seen, maybe that’s exactly what we have to do.” Rory leaned back in his chair as Scott stared at him in disbelief. “After Luscian, and Kukiko, and the
Angelus
, maybe he needs to bottom out before he can rebuild his life.” Rory looked at Take. “I offered him a choice once: walk away from the human life he’d led and live in the sunlight, or live in fear of discovery, hiding what he was from everyone he cared about. He chose to hide, clutching the tatters of his human life around him for comfort. Maybe he needs to let go of that life, and the things it gave him, if he ever wants to find his feet again and stop running.”

Scott scowled. “And when was this choice, exactly?”

“The day after he died the first time,” said Take.

Scott rounded on Rory. “Is that why he avoided you for a year? Because you told him to give up on a normal life?”

“Nick died because I tried to live in human company again!” Rory snapped. “Look what happened to you because he refused to accept that ‘normal’ just doesn’t apply to us.”

Scott glared at him. “I have no regrets about opening my eyes, Rory.”

“Then why don’t you invite your wife over to dinner with us, here in Anchorpoint?”

Scott gritted his teeth. “So you think we should just let his life implode around him, so he can start over?” He scoffed. “That’s a cop out.”

“It’s a point of view,” Rory said with a sigh. “It might not be yours, and hell, it might not even be mine, but it’s something we should consider before you try to force him to live by your rules.”

Scott was saved the trouble of answering when the front door chimed. “Lorcan Primogenitor Diluthical is requesting entry.”

Take frowned as he glanced at the clock on the wall. “What the hell is he doing here at this hour?”

“I invited him.” Rory raised his voice. “Let him in.”

The door opened and Lorcan entered. Then he stopped and looked at each of the occupants in turn. The door closed silently behind him as he walked into the living room. “My Lord Traveler, your message said you needed to speak to me on a matter of some urgency.”

“Yes. When was the last time you spoke to Nick?”

Lorcan stood up straight. “Last month, in Los Angeles. He made it plain that he would not face his fears and that he had no need of my help.” Lorcan growled, his eyes flashing. “Did you call me here to talk about Nicholas? He cast me aside.” Spinning around, he started toward the door. “If you will excuse me, my Lord? I have a little pride left.”

“Will pride keep you warm at night?” Rory asked bitterly. “I called you here because you love him, just as we all do.”

Takeshi rolled his eyes at that statement, but Rory ignored him, pressing ahead with his pitch. “You deserve to have a say in what we do to try and save him.”

Lorcan marched back to Rory and slammed his hands down on the table to either side of the other Nightwalker. “He doesn’t need you to save him, Redeemer!” Lorcan bared his fangs. “He needs to save himself.”