Starlight(Pact Arcanum 4) (16 page)

“The terms of the bargain were agreed upon. The Nexus could and would have withdrawn their offer if he reneged.”

“Bullshit. He could have found a way. Hell, he could have written me a letter if he wanted to keep it a secret.”

Tobias sighed. “He didn’t think you could keep your mouth shut.”

Nick’s jaw dropped. “Wait. What?”

“Toby believed you would not be able to resist the temptation to reveal the existence of the technology.”

The bottom of Nick’s world dropped away and he felt himself standing on a precipice in the center of his mind. “Why would he think that?”

“Because you love too deeply. Would you have been able to let go of his memory if you knew a part of him continued to exist, even in this altered form? Would you have allowed Scott to die forever, if you had known?” The avatar regarded him with a sad expression. “Or Jeremy?”

In his mind’s eye, Nick watched himself step off the edge into the open air and fall.

“He didn’t trust me.”

“No.”

The ground came up to meet him, and a part of him died while Luscian laughed in triumph.

Then he did weep, for one last piece of innocence, lost.

P
ART
III
: 
S
ECOND
D
ERIVATIVE
M
AXIMUM

C
HAPTER 22

September 2142; House Daviroquir Stronghold, London, England

William glanced up at the tone from his computer. Tapping his security code into the keypad, he found a new, coded message from Lorcan. He waited for the decryption software to translate the message.

Stonehenge. Tonight. Come alone.

William fumed at the curt message.
Typical. Lorcan appears to have recovered his flair for the dramatic. Does he think I will simply answer his beck and call now that he is no longer my Master?

He stood from his chair, and walked briskly toward the teleport gateway.
It’s time we renegotiated the terms of this alliance.

September 2142; the Citadel, Lunar Farside

Rory woke when he felt the bed shift. He opened his eyes to see Lorcan sitting next to him, fully dressed.

Lorcan smiled. “You look better.”

“Do you have to go?”

“The Court will want to discuss this new development. Outside the Armistice, the threat of being killed by Sentinels or humans remains significant. They’ll want to know what I am doing to acquire the means to preserve their minds after death.”

Rory groaned and sat up in bed. “The High Council will probably want to decide how best to release the technology.”

Lorcan chuckled. “You’re going to be on the spot, Leshir. What are you going to tell them?”

“The cat’s out of the bag now. People know. The Nexus won’t be able to refuse without causing a massive, public-relations backlash against the AI community. Nexus White will see reason, I hope.”

Lorcan raised an eyebrow. “You hope?”

“The Nexus has a long history of independent action. They might refuse to yield to the will of organics if it doesn’t suit their purposes.” Rory sighed. “Why did I want this job, anyway?”

Lorcan’s smile grew strained. “You wanted to be free.”

Rory stared at him for a moment, and then dropped his gaze. “I should have told you.”

“Yes, you should have. But that ship has sailed, Sean. You’ll just have to make it up to me.” Lorcan looked away. “To both of us.”

Rory hesitated before speaking. “Have you heard from him?”

“I went to see him after you went to sleep. He’s got some thinking to do. Don’t worry, I’ll drop by Sanctuary after the Court adjourns, and see how he’s doing. Maybe we can defuse this.”

“You know how stubborn he is, Ruarc.”

Lorcan leaned forward and kissed Rory’s cheek. “And you know how stubborn
I
am.” He stood and walked toward the door. “I’ll see you tonight, Sean.”

Rory lay back in bed, and stared absently at the ceiling for a few minutes. “Revenant.”

“Good morning, Rory.”

“How did your talk go with Layla?”

“Better than expected.”

Rory waited for a moment. “Are you going to tell me if you talked to Nick?”

“You didn’t ask.”

Rory frowned. “You’re being deliberately obtuse. Is this punishment for confirming your existence?”

“Yes.”

“Very funny. How is he?”

“He was drinking himself into a stupor when I left.”

Rory closed his eyes and sighed. “That bad?”

“I don’t think he liked what I had to say.”

Rory rolled out of bed. “What did you tell him?”

“The truth.”

Rory paused. “About what?”

“None of your business.”

Rory snorted as he headed toward the shower.
Definitely punishment.
“What’s our schedule like for today?”

“The Nexus meets in thirty minutes, in parallel to the emergency High Council meeting this morning.”

“That sounds fun.”

“Magic requires sacrifice, Rory. We may not know who opened the door to this situation, but you were the one who decided to walk through.”

September 2142; Stonehenge, Wiltshire County, England

William stood before the heelstone and watched the sunset. He checked the chronometer printed on his hand and frowned.
How long does he intend to keep me waiting? Another hour, and then I leave him to his own devices. Lorcan will have to learn that House Daviroquir will not be trifled with, despite our common purpose.

A sharp crack and the etheric rustle of magic caught his attention. Casting his senses wide, he detected another vampire standing within the stone circle.
Finally.

He walked briskly away from the leaning stone at the entrance of the historical site and made his way inside, following the sound of the other heartbeat. Then he stopped, feeling the jumper block congeal around him.

Immediately he called his sword to his hand and ran, cursing his foolishness.
I was so annoyed at the manner of the summons that I never once questioned its validity. How could I have been so stupid?
Their communications were clearly compromised, and he was alone.

He had cleared the ring of standing stones and was already on the open ground when he felt a sharp sting at the back of his neck.
What are they shooting at me? Bullets won’t even slow me down.
Then he felt the creeping numbness spreading down his back as his muscles slackened. He stumbled and fell to the ground when he lost control of his limbs.
Poison.

He could barely move his head when the Night’s Herald appeared in front of him from behind a shroud of invisibility. “Good evening, Prince William,” she said.

“How?” he croaked.

“My AI was able to infiltrate the Huntmaster’s computer systems and send the false message, if that is what you are asking.” She hefted the small pistol in her hand. “Or do you mean this? An interesting device developed by one of the human intelligence services. It freezes the poison of choice and fires flechettes of ice by linear induction. Silent, lethal, and untraceable.”

He heard a second set of footsteps approaching from within the monuments, and Vladimir Magister Talizered walked into his field of view. “It’s a pity we had to restrict ourselves to a simple neuromuscular blocker for its first test, but you have information we need.”

William tried to speak, to hurl his defiance in their faces, but he was paralyzed. He could only watch as the Herald knelt next to him and drew his head back by the hair. Then she bared her fangs and began to feed on him.

The blood-magic bridge opened between them, and he felt his strength and memories being drained away. His heartbeat accelerated wildly, and his vision turned gray at the edges. Then she stopped, and stood again, leaving him weak and panting for breath on the ground.

“Are you sure this will work, Razheel?” Vladimir’s voice was emotionless as he contemplated the enemy at his feet.

“Imperator Luscian’s writings that we confiscated after the Burning contained very detailed descriptions of the spellforms involved. It should work.”

“Are you certain enough to chance your life?”

“We shall see.” She stood over William and began a complex incantation while he watched helplessly. Finally, her words tapered off and she drew her sword. “I am ready.”

Vladimir nodded and called his own sword to his hand. Then he spun in place and cut her head from her shoulders.

William stared at them in incomprehension, watching the fall of her head as it tumbled to the ground, followed by her body. Then he was ripped away from the scene and found himself standing unharmed in an empty landscape, surrounded by mist. He shook himself experimentally, and found his limbs responding to his control again.

The mists parted in front of him, and the Herald appeared before him, her sword in her hand. “And it seems the gamble was a success, after all,” she said, flashing her fangs at him.

William summoned his sword to his hand, and was shocked when nothing happened. He swallowed, finally allowing himself a moment of fear for the first time since he had arrived at Stonehenge. “What have you done, Herald?”

She shook her head. “The Night’s Herald is dead, William Magister Daviroquir. I am Razheel once more; but you may call me Soulkiller.”

William sneered. “Don’t flatter yourself. You are nothing compared to the Eldest,
Razheel
.”

“I don’t claim to be, Prince William. But I have recovered one of his most potent magics: the ability to claim another body for my own.”

William backed up a step. “Impossible. Even if you had the spell, it would do you no good. You have no soul to pass into another body.”

She smiled widely. “I have had over a century to study the magic, Daywalker. It doesn’t require me to have a soul, only that a soul be present.” She raised her sword. “Convenient that you have one ready and available for me to bind.”

William turned and ran into the mist, but he was weakened from the feeding, and she was the stronger for it. In a moment, she caught up to him and stabbed her sword into his back.

William collapsed to the ground, holding back a scream of agony.
I will not show weakness before this witch.
He forced himself to speak, despite the pain. “You served the Court with honor, Herald. Don’t throw it away now to wallow in Luscian’s necromancy.”

She drew back her sword. “Did you not say I was unworthy of your blade, my Lord? What need do I have of honor, when I can have vengeance?”

Then she snapped her blade forward, and he knew nothing more.

* * *

Vladimir waited for another two minutes beyond the three that the Herald had instructed, just to be sure, then administered the antidote to William. He stood back and raised his sword to the ready as William opened his eyes and got slowly to his feet.

“Who are you, boy?” asked the Nightwalker.

William faced him and smiled. “I am Soulkiller reborn.”

Vladimir lowered his sword. “Did you feed on enough of his memories to impersonate him convincingly?”

William nodded. “Oh, yes. They will never suspect.”

Vladimir laughed loudly. “Then we’ve won.”

T
HE
S
PY

C
HAPTER 23

September 2142; High Council Chamber, Armistice Security Headquarters, Anchorpoint City, Colorado

Rory listened with half his mind as the other Councilors argued with the Nexus avatars.
This is getting us nowhere.
He idly traced the seal of the High Council etched in the heavy, sandalwood conference table: three interlocked spirals in ebony, platinum and ivory to represent the three supernatural races, surrounded by twin circles of gold and lapis to represent the AIs and humans that had joined them.

Layla addressed the Nexus White avatar with poisonous civility. “What do you mean by ‘obsolete’?”

The white iris glowed in the eye design.
“The neurochip matrix that allowed for the Revenant AI to be created was prototype technology. It is incompatible with the current generation of AI software.”

Amaterasu Sojosten, the Speaker for Dawn, sat calmly in her chair, her eyes intent. What the diminutive Asian woman lacked in height was more than compensated for by the size of her intellect, honed by fifteen hundred years of Court intrigue. “Can you adapt the original technology to current standards?”

“Yes.”

The other Nightwalker in the room laughed. “But
will
you do it?”

Rory had recruited Marcus Jiao-long to his house several decades before as part of the Great Work, from the remains of a lesser house from western Africa that had been decimated and absorbed in the course of Court infighting. Since then, Marcus had proven himself an invaluable asset as both an administrator and as an ally. With Rory’s support, he had accepted the position of Speaker for the Damned when Rory had retired from Armistice government. He was meticulous about maintaining his honor, however, and never showed his master any favor when Rory rejoined the council as Speaker for the Word. He was also experienced at speaking with AIs, and knew that precision mattered.