Starlight(Pact Arcanum 4) (9 page)

Antonio looked at him with a sly expression. “Well, no. But there’s this Lieutenant down in Life Support who’s just
dying
to meet you.”

Rafael rolled his eyes. “Tony, your little matchmaker project was amusing when you were a teenager, but you’re almost a hundred years old now. When are you going to give up?” He scowled in mock annoyance. “How would you like it if I started in on your love life?”

Antonio gulped. “What?”

Rafael smiled, showing his fangs. “You’re obviously still a bachelor, if you’re able to take an interstellar call while wearing pajamas and a ratty, old shirt.” He looked over Antonio’s clothes critically. “A shirt that I gave you the last time you were here, incidentally, almost twenty years ago.”

Antonio stared at him indignantly. “Hey, I like this shirt. It’s comfortable.”

“If you had a woman in your life, she’d already have burned it.” Rafael grinned. “And a man would have stolen it from you.”

Antonio was about to say something scathing in reply when he heard the musical chime in his quarters. “Um…Raf, the comm array is about to shut down to prevent it from overheating. I’ve got to sign off now.”

Rafael sighed. “I know. It was great to see you again, Antonio. I look forward to your arrival.”

“Goodbye, Rafael.” The world went white again for a moment as the virtual environment terminated, leaving Antonio standing alone in his quarters. He sat again in his chair, and looked down at his clothes. “I
like
this shirt,” he muttered to himself. Then he looked out the window again. “Pathfinder, what’s our estimated time of arrival at Arcadia Colony?”

“At present speed, we will arrive at Arcadia in eleven months, three days, ten hours.”

Antonio slumped in his chair. “See if you can find Bradley Ellestan. Tell him I’m ready for that run now.” He stared out the window for a time, then regretfully got out of his chair and changed into a t-shirt and sweatpants.

“Junior Crewman Ellestan informs me that he will be waiting for you on the Engineering deck,” said the AI.

Antonio left his quarters for the core elevator. The vessel was laid out in a cylinder—circular decks stacked along the long axis of the ship, with the bridge at the top and the living quarters at the base. The upper floors were dedicated to ship’s services and manufacturing, but the Engineering deck in the center was one of the few that had entry points to the maintenance tunnels that ran the length of the ship. Those corridors housed the mechanism of the conventional gravity drive, which would be activated only when the ship entered a planetary system, so they were largely deserted while the ship was under inertialess flight. But given that their internal gravity was adjusted perpendicular to the rest of the decks, they remained the longest horizontal spaces anywhere on the ship.

Antonio had taken to running the circumference of the vessel about three times a week, especially when he needed to relax and clear his mind. Brad had been delighted when he discovered that aspect of Antonio’s exercise routine, and made a point of tagging along every weekend. Antonio had been resistant to the intrusion at first, but eventually he found that he enjoyed the company.

Rafael had been right. There wasn’t really anyone special in his life at the moment, though there had been a Daywalker he’d been sweet on at Chiron Colony on the last break between trips. He’d gone so far as to ask her to come with him this time, but she had declined to uproot her life for a two-decade round trip in an enclosed environment. He didn’t blame her. It took a unique level of commitment to travel the void, and most people just weren’t up for it.

He exited the elevator at the Engineering deck, and found his godson stretching out in the open area next to the radial corridor that led to the outer hull. The boy looked up as Antonio approached, and smiled widely, his eyes shifting to a cool blue. “Ready to eat my dust, Captain?”

Antonio grinned at the blatant challenge, his dark mood lifting as his competitive streak emerged. “Winner buys breakfast?”

The six-year-old gulped, and Antonio watched him mentally tally his finances. Then Brad shot to his feet in spite of his misgivings, appearing supremely confident of victory. “You’re on.”

Antonio set a gentle pace as they jogged down the radial corridor to the access point. Then, once they entered the empty maintenance tunnel, he poured on a burst of speed. He might not be able to run as fast as a pure vampire or an Earth Sentinel, but he was close. Behind him, he heard his godson cursing up a storm before quickly closing the gap. Even given his tender years, Bradley Ellestan was a speed demon, and Antonio knew he would have to push himself to stay ahead.

They ran neck and neck all the way up to Deck Two below the bridge, then down the twisted ramp that brought them back in line with the gravitic axis of the rest of the ship. They sprinted through the radial corridor around the morning pedestrians to the maintenance tunnel on the opposite side. Then Antonio stumbled in shock as Bradley leapt over him, the Harbinger child twisting in the air as he crossed the gravity interface, landing lightly on his feet in the maintenance corridor. The boy flashed his fangs at Antonio, eyes red, then blurred down the maintenance tunnel toward the lower decks.

Shaking off his surprise, Antonio gave chase, but never really made up the distance before they completed their circuit of the ship. Back at the Engineering deck, he collapsed against the wall next to the core elevator and tried to catch his breath. Two steps away, his godson sat with his head down, gulping air. “Are you all right, Bradley?”

“Yeah.” Brad raised his head and took a deep breath. “I don’t think I could keep down breakfast, though, so we’ll have to do that some other time.”

Antonio laughed weakly. “My treat.”

Brad smiled at him, still looking a little green. “And that makes it worth it.”

Antonio relaxed against the wall, ignoring the amused looks of the other crewmembers as they exited the core elevator. “Enjoy your victory, little man. Next time, you’re buying.”

Brad’s smile slipped, and he tentatively grasped Antonio’s arm. “I didn’t mean the bet,” he said, his expression serious. “It was worth it to hear you laugh. You’re always so depressed after you talk to your folks.”

Antonio stared at him in shock, and then pulled his arm away. “I don’t know what—”

The younger telepath extended a tendril of thought to speak to him privately.
“You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to, Tony. But we all know when you’ve called home, and we know to stay out of your way afterward.”

Antonio frowned in confusion.
“What does that mean?”

“You come down hard on everyone, you find fault with everything, and you’re never happy until you’ve made someone else’s life miserable.”
The boy dropped his gaze.
“I thought it was going to be my turn this time.”

Antonio was appalled.
“Bradley, I would never do anything to hurt you. You have to know that.”

Brad shook his head sadly.
“You wouldn’t mean to, but I heard you yelling at my mom last year. You called her a soulless bloodsucker.”

Antonio flushed as he remembered. It was a grievous insult to denigrate the Grace to a Daywalker, and Brad’s father had been heartbeats away from punching him out before Antonio had apologized.
“I didn’t know you were there.”

“I hid.”

Antonio felt his cheeks burn with shame.
“I thought your parents wouldn’t let me near you for a week afterward because they were angry, but you didn’t want to see me either, did you?”

Brad didn’t reply, but his eyes shifted to a deep purple, mutely expressing his anger.

Antonio sighed and looked away, unable to face the accusation in the boy’s stare.
“My family thinks I’m a failure.”
He felt Brad’s surprise over their telepathic connection, but didn’t look back.
“They wanted me to fulfill the destiny the White Wind picked out, to lead the Children of Starlight. They interpreted it to mean that I had to be groomed to be Archangel one day, and they drilled me unmercifully in diplomacy and protocol. Every decision had to weighed and judged for its political implications. My father was the first Speaker for the Word, even before AI emancipation, and they expected me to live out the life they thought he should have had. But I never knew him. I only had a vague memory of touching his mind a few times. My whole adolescence, I tried to live up to their expectations and be what they wanted. Eventually, I just had to get away.

“My uncle was the Archangel and my mother was the Speaker for the Dawn. The Spacer Guild was the only shelter from their authority in the Armistice, and I begged my friend Rafael to sponsor me in secret for admission. When I got in, they didn’t want to let me go. The only ones who stood up for me were Raf and Uncle Jeremy. I still don’t know how they convinced the rest of the family to back off and let me enroll in the Academy. Uncle Nick came to my graduation ceremony, but he barely said six words to me afterward. I didn’t speak to my mother in person for eight more years, until I made Captain and chose the
Singularity
as my permanent berth. I think that’s when it finally sunk in that I wasn’t going to back down.”

Bradley reached out and lifted Antonio’s left sleeve to expose the blue and red-gold phoenix tattoo on the elder Harbinger’s shoulder.
“Suddenly, this image makes a lot more sense.”

“It took us a long time to get over our pride and try to be a family again, but every time I talk to them I see only the disappointment in their eyes. I…I didn’t realize I was taking it out on the rest of you. I’m sorry.”

Brad squeezed his shoulder gently.
“Apology accepted.”

Antonio turned back to face the younger telepath. “I wonder if the galley AI could dig up a recipe for ice cream. Uncle Jeremy once said it always cheered him up after confessing his sins.”

Brad frowned in confusion. “What’s ‘ice cream’?”

Antonio smirked. “Trust me, you’ll love it.”

T
HE
R
ACE

C
HAPTER 14

April 2142; Sanctuary, French Alps; seven months later

Nick listened with half his mind as Layla was speaking, looking down from the High Tower at the open market that filled the courtyard, brightly lit by globes of mystical fire. Not much had changed physically since the day he and Rory had watched, from this same vantage, the great bonfires that had consumed the remains of the House Luscian soldiers after the Burning. Over the last century, however, the role of the fortress had changed radically. It was still the seat of House Luscian and home to Armistice Security’s European headquarters, but it had become a great deal more than that. Nick had made it a beacon of hope to metahuman fugitives and refugees from all over the world who were trying to escape the war between Sentinels and Nightwalkers that still raged across more than half the planet. The castle was now the gateway to the Armistice Zone, the immigration-processing center through which all aspiring citizens were funneled for review of their applications for asylum.

In the wake of the American and Court espionage operations that had infiltrated the Armistice in the middle of the last century, almost resulting in the destruction of their capital city of Anchorpoint, Armistice Security had become increasingly selective in allowing refugees to cross over into Armistice territory. The majority of applicants were kept waiting for months in the castle while their backgrounds were investigated. Nightwalker candidates often remained in residence for years as their centuries of past associations were examined. It was Nick’s mortal husband Jeremy, sensitized to the plight of the refugees by his own fugitive status as a former terrorist, who had first realized that the elements of a permanent community had crystalized here.

THEN: December 2046; Castle Night, French Alps; 96 years earlier

Nick breathed a sigh of relief as the last petitioner left the room. Standing from the throne of House Luscian, he made his way out of the Great Hall and up the winding central staircase of the High Tower toward his quarters. Pushing open the door, he yawned as he crossed the threshold.

“Looks like you had an exciting evening.”

Nick smiled at Jeremy. His husband was sitting propped up with pillows against the headboard of Luscian’s heavy brass bed. The covers were pulled up to his chest as he read from a leather-bound book of nineteenth-century poetry borrowed from the extensive library of the castle.

“Same as every other month,” answered Nick. “Two more days to hear the rest of the petitions and make my rulings, and then we’re free to go home.”

Jeremy marked his place with a slip of green ribbon and set the book aside. “You could always jump back to Anchorpoint at the end of the day.”

Nick shrugged out of his suit jacket and loosened his tie, before dropping both over the back of an occasional chair. “Honor dictates that I stay in residence for the full three days while I inspect my fiefdom. Many people who live here are traditionalists. It would just foster resentment over my continued rule if I didn’t live up to my obligations.” He discarded the rest of his clothes on the floor and climbed into bed next to Jeremy.