Sunset: Pact Arcanum: Book One (37 page)

“Paris is the seat of House Tervilant; you stand in the very center of our domain.” She lifted her chin defiantly. “Do you honestly think our Master will come running to wait upon you, Daywalker?” She spat the last word, making it an insult.

Nick smiled, amused. “The seat of House Tervilant is Barcelona, Primogenitor. This territory has belonged to House Luscian for twenty thousand years, from the Rhine to the Pyrenees. Your expansion into my lands was premature.”

The gathered Nightwalkers muttered angrily.

“That is history, my Lord,” she said, her face stony. “House Luscian fell—and you were not present in the Court to defend your claim. These are our lands now.”

The points of Nick’s fangs extended over his bottom lip as he smiled wider. “You live here at my sufferance, Nightwalker. If I but raise my hand, you would all be gone.” He reached into his mind for Reaper, and it appeared immediately in his hand, flames hissing angrily. Leveling the sword at her, he said solemnly, “The world is made of choices, my Lady. Four nights ago, one of your people chose to steal the innocence of a member of my house—something that was infinitely precious to me.

“Your house has defied me, broken faith with House Luscian, and stained my honor irretrievably. If I do not receive restitution tonight for that affront, then tomorrow night, before the Court of Shadows, I will challenge your occupation of my territory. Your Magister may wait upon me now, in person, or he will face my blade tomorrow in the Challenge of Kings.”

He swept the sword in a figure eight before him, and its blue flames left a luminous afterimage in its wake. “By all means, if he wishes to risk becoming my servant in the Crown of Souls and subjugating his entire bloodline to my will for a century afterward, that is his choice—the only decision I choose to allow him.” Nick’s eyes shone crimson as he stared over the black blade at the Nightwalker before him. “Brion Magister Diluthical proved there are no lines I will refuse to cross. Does your Master wish to test me again?”

Monserrat listened, her expression neutral even in the face of the flaming sword in his hand, but he noted her eyes shift as she communicated with her Magister through the bloodline. After a moment, she turned her attention back to Nick. “Nicholas Magister Luscian, my Master finds your challenge laughable at best, if not overtly insulting. He welcomes the chance to exterminate the last of Luscian’s bloodline, the oldest and greatest of our enemies. However, given that a ranking member of our house was involved in the regrettable incident involving your brother, in direct contravention of the orders of the Court of Shadows, he will deign to speak to you without bloodshed.”

Nick’s eyes faded back to blue. Lowering his sword, he smiled warmly at her, his fangs retracting. “There you go, Primogenitor. Was that really so hard?”

“If you will come with me, Lord?” she said sourly. “My Master awaits you in the cathedral.”

“He wishes to speak to me on holy ground?”

She smiled, showing her fangs. “His strength is great enough to keep the rudimentary faith magic of the humans at bay. It amuses my Master to defy the followers of the Light, and it would be better if the two of you were able to speak privately, so he has put the occupants of the building to sleep. Be warned, however, that several of us are strong enough to enter the cathedral and come to his aid, should you choose to attack.”

Nick nodded and followed her into the crowd of Nightwalkers, which parted before them to line the path all the way to the doors of Notre Dame. At the open doorway below the central arch, she stopped and faced him again, her expression forbidding. “He awaits you before the high altar, my Lord. Know that I am one of those strong enough to enter. If you go to war with us tonight, I will gladly splinter your bones and feast on your marrow.”

Nick gripped Reaper more tightly in his hand, but he said nothing before walking through the doors and past the unconscious worshipers. Ignoring the religious artwork and statuary all around him, he walked down the nave to the man standing before the high altar.

“Prince Xavier.”

Xavier Magister Tervilant turned to face him, raising his sword to rest the point at his own shoulder. “Prince Nicholas.” He turned back to the high altar. “You asked for this meeting, Magister of a dead house. Say what you wish to say, and then go.”

“I told the Court I would strike down any house that interfered with my family,” Nick hissed. “That I would scorch the earth and sow the ground with salt so that nothing would ever grow there again.”

“Strong words from a lone man,” said Xavier with a chuckle. “You may have cause to regret them if you think yourself powerful enough to defend against us all.” He glanced knowingly at Nick. “I have walked the lands of the Iberian Peninsula for six thousand years, Nicholas Magister Luscian—since before humans rediscovered bronze—while your Master lorded his power over us from his fortress on high. Now that he is gone and we are here, nothing will exile us back to the lives we led before.

“The time of House Luscian is over. You and your allies made sure of that. You may have stolen the knowledge and the strength of the Eldest, but you are not he. You do not measure up even to the mud on his boots. Walk away, child, and step out of his shadow, as we have. I do not fear you or your sword, Daywalker. If you challenge me before the Court, I will scatter your ashes to the wind just for the chance to lay his legacy to rest forever.”

“I cannot back down from a threat to the ones I love, my Lord,” Nicholas said earnestly. “I have committed my honor to their defense.”

“Honor.” Xavier snorted. “Honor is a tool, boy—a way to harness the Red Wind to serve our needs. If you let it rule you, you become its puppet.” He raised his left hand and pointed at the altar, where a shroud of invisibility dropped away to reveal an intricately worked silver urn. “If honor means so much to you, look inside.”

Nick’s eyes darted from the urn to Xavier, who was watching him expectantly. Reaching out with his left hand, but keeping his sword arm free, he lifted the lid. Inside, the urn was three-quarters full of fine gray ash. He focused his full senses on it and felt a faint psychic echo of pain and terror. Quickly fitting the lid back into place, he regarded Xavier soberly.

“Who was it?” he finally asked.

Xavier stared at the urn. “Her name was Isabeau. She served me faithfully for more than a millennium. A friend. A trusted adviser. But she compromised my honor when she caused your brother to come into his power. I could not let her live, not without damaging my standing in the Court. Out of respect for her service and her loyalty, I offered her a choice: seek the sunrise on her own or face the punishment I had crafted for her. She chose the sunrise.”

Xavier reached out with the point of his sword and knocked the urn off the altar, spilling the ashes across the floor of the apse as it rolled away. “She has paid for her transgression. That is the price of your honor, Nicholas. Now leave my city and never return.”

Nick looked at the ash stains on the altar cloth and the pall of gray flakes that covered his shoes. Then he reached into his pocket and pulled out a rectangular device with a small, integrated keypad. “It’s not enough,” he said sadly.

Xavier eyed the device suspiciously. “Is that a weapon?”

“Of a sort. It’s the control module for a temporal manipulator that is in geosynchronous orbit over Paris. I had one of our jumpvessels place it there. Usually, that kind of technology is restricted to large-scale, planned projects with extensive preparation time, but it can be made to work on short notice if confined to a very small target. It has allowed me to walk the length and breadth of the city, as well as the surrounding countryside, in a miniature bubble of accelerated time. I have been here for six months, my Lord, while only two days passed for the rest of the world.”

Xavier raised the point of his sword
en garde
between them. “For what purpose?” he muttered through clenched teeth.

“I have shed my blood and mixed it with the earth to form a permanent containment circle around the entire greater metropolitan area. No Child of Darkness has been able to leave the city since I activated it the moment I stepped across the threshold of the Cathedral. I have also shielded the containment matrix to prevent the circle from being dispersed from the outside.”

“So you have trapped us here? That is your revenge?” Xavier’s face twisted in contempt. “I will not kill you now, Magister Luscian. Leave while you can, until the day I break your circle and you die with it.” He spat on the floor in front of Nick.

Nick shook his head. “The circle is layered and modular. If any part of it fails, the surrounding elements of the spell will restore the damaged portion. You will never be able to break through, Magister Tervilant. You will remain here in your city, until the day you die.” He drew himself up to his full height. “If I don’t make an example of you, my family and friends will become pawns for the Court, bargaining chips to be used against me. I can’t let them suffer because of what I am. That is the price of my honor.”

“Then you have become Luscian’s heir in truth.” Xavier sneered at him. “And your justifications ring just as hollow. Do you honestly think the Court will be impressed that you have crafted your own eternal prison—a lesser version of your Master’s Crown?” He laughed out loud. “You should have killed me, Nicholas. I will break your circle, and I will take your life. In the meantime, I have been projecting this entire little drama to the Court through my link to one of my Praetors in the Council Chamber. They have seen your pathetic Daywalker aversion to killing. They know you are weak. Your lack of will has condemned all those you protect to the very fate from which you tried to save them. Nothing you do now can convince the Court not to exact vengeance on House Luscian. Tonight, by your half-measures, you have truly lost everything.”

Nick turned back to look at the ashes strewn across the floor. “You’re right, but not in the way you think. I knew what I was going to have to sacrifice the second I finished casting the second half of the spell: a cascade purification field, designed to radiate outward from the Place du Parvis at the center of the city, then reflect off the containment circle to form a permanent standing wave across the enclosed space for eternity.” He looked up again into Xavier’s widened eyes as he set the preconstructed spell in motion, reaching through Luscian’s sword to draw upon the full power of the Crown of Souls. “I’m sorry.”

The vampire lord struck blindingly fast. Nick blocked with Reaper, knocking Xavier’s sword sideways so that it sank deeply into his left lung rather than piercing his heart. The Daywalker collapsed, gasping for breath. Just as Xavier pulled his blade free of Nick’s chest and drew his arm back for a killing stroke, a wave of mystic symbols appeared on the floor of the cathedral and raced down the nave toward them. As they reached the Nightwalker, the sword slipped from his hand and he fell, convulsing on the floor. Nick watched silently as the mosaic of magic signs blew past them to the east. Ten seconds later, it was over, and Xavier’s body crumbled into dust.

Nick stood wearily, coughing up the blood spilled into his lungs. He allowed Reaper to fade away and slipped the temporal manipulator control back into his pocket. Ignoring the pool of his blood as it spread into a black mire, mixing with the dust and ashes on the floor, he walked quietly over the Sigils of Purification, up the nave of the cathedral to the doors. He held his breath as he stepped outside, squinting against the hanging clouds of dust, stirred into motion by the freshening breeze upon the piles of white powder that had been an army only moments before.

“So this is what genocide feels like,” Nick said aloud, his heart empty. “No wonder Rory drinks himself into a stupor one day a year.”

C
HAPTER 30

Icehaven City, Hudson Bay, Canada; One hour later

Rafael Tervilant mulled over his options as he examined the AI neural network software package he was designing. He made some adjustments on the control panel of his workstation, and the virtual schematic rotated ninety degrees and then expanded to reveal the interconnections between cognition and linguistics. Finally, fatigue killed his enthusiasm, and he leaned back in his chair and sipped at his glass of bloodwine. He glanced at the clock—two o’clock in the afternoon. Late enough to make him bone tired but far enough past midday to prevent him from getting any sleep.
I might as well stay up for the rest of the day,
he thought sourly.
Maybe I can make up my sleep debt if I go to bed at dawn instead of sunrise.

He stood with a yawn, smoothing the wrinkles from the pants of the simple, two-piece, black outfit favored by the Nightwalkers of the Citadel, and made his way back to the living room. Settling on the couch, he picked up the remote and activated the off-world news feeds. The virtual screen opened, revealing a dozen icons—some with scrolling text, some with integrated video. He read at random, trying to get a sense of what was happening out there above the sky.

The security AI interrupted. “Nicholas Magister Luscian is requesting entry.”

Rafael frowned and glanced at the clock once more. Then he stood and clicked off the news feed. He looked around for his shirt and then snorted.
Who cares what I look like? This is Nick we’re talking about. I’m certainly not going to end up on his dance card.
Chuckling, he unsealed the front door.

“Hi, Raf,” Nick said, leaning on the doorframe. “You’re up late,” he said.

He sounded as tired as Rafael felt, and despite his casual pose, Rafael could tell it was more than just a friendly visit. He rolled his eyes in annoyance. “Late enough that I wasn’t expecting visitors. I was working on a new design and lost track of time.” He cocked his head. “What brings you to Icehaven at this time of day? Most of the city is asleep by now.”

“I came to see you.” Nick considered his words carefully. “There’s something we need to talk about, and I’m not sure how it will affect our relationship.”