Scott was silent. Nick made the only sound—a quiet weeping.
Then Ana spoke. “That doesn’t explain what you did.”
“He needed something to believe in,” said Jeremy, “something to sustain him when the rest of you were gone. Honor and duty were the only things keeping him going. So I released my hold on the power and gave it away.”
Scott snarled, his teeth lengthening into razor-sharp fangs. “You gave the power to him after stripping away the constraints of your intent! You never let that kind of energy run free without restriction. Never! Nothing can stand against it. What were you thinking, passing him a Pure Draw? Unfiltered power of that magnitude destroys everything it touches.”
“It had to be pure,” said Jeremy. “Otherwise it wouldn’t have been enough. If he survived, he would have an eternal memory of perfect and everlasting light to keep him alive.”
“How was he supposed to survive that?” Ana demanded. “Nothing from our reality can coexist with what lives beyond the Gates. Nothing at all.”
“He is Soulkiller’s Bane,” argued Jeremy. “If anyone could have lived through it, it would have been him.”
“So you did it on purpose, knowing he would almost certainly die,” said Ana.
Scott flexed his claws. “Your sixty seconds are up, Sentinel. I hope you weren’t too attached to your head.”
“Enough,” said a tired voice behind them. They turned to see Nick struggling to his feet and wiping at the bloodied tear tracks on his face. “Leave him alone.”
“Nick, you can’t be serious,” said Ana. “He tried to kill you.”
“But he didn’t.” Nick walked past the two Sentinels to stand directly in front of Jeremy. “I heard you say what you did, and that you thought I needed it, but you never said why you bothered. Why take the risk? You must have known Scott would kill you if I didn’t make it.”
“I was fully prepared never to leave this room.” Jeremy’s eyes returned to the bomb before he swung around to face Nick again. “You saved my life. You thought I was a pathetic, self-deluded zealot, ready to stain my hands with the blood of millions, but you did it anyway. You weren’t sure what I was, but you risked breaking the treaty just to give me the chance to know the truth, so that I wouldn’t die the way you died—alone, in the dark, without ever knowing what happened to me or why. You gambled your life to show me mercy, and you gave me a reason to keep living. The least I could do was follow your example.”
Nick smiled sadly. “Everything you said about me was true, and you succeeded in giving me a perfect memory that I will cherish forever. You’ve offered me a measure of hope I had lost.” He held out his hand. “For that, I thank you.”
Jeremy shook his hand. “We’re even now.”
“Yes, we are.” Nick let his hand drop. “We owe each other nothing.”
“I guess that offer of sanctuary has expired.”
“I guess it has.” Nick’s tone was neutral. “What will you do now?”
“I suppose I’ll get used to looking at the world through bars.” Jeremy gazed at the unconscious bodies littering the floor around them. “Maybe I’ll learn to play chess with the other inmates. I always meant to figure out that game. Now, I have nothing but free time.” He grinned at Nick. “I’m glad you survived, Nicholas. You’re all right, for a bloodsucker.”
Nick sighed. “Rapier, bear witness.”
“Forensic recording enabled.”
“I affirm and attest that Sentinel Jeremy Kenneth Harkness has demonstrated to my satisfaction the ability and willingness to think beyond the behavioral imperatives of the Sentinel Gift, and as such, has fulfilled the requirements of the Test of Reason set forth in the Armistice Declaration of 2021. Subject to his agreement to abide by the terms of the treaty, and ratification by the Triumvirate, he has my complete support and sponsorship should he desire to make an application for full citizenship among the Free People. Set and done this date over my seal and signature, Nicholas Lawrence Jameson Magister Luscian, called Soulkiller’s Bane, called the Prince of Thunder.”
Jeremy gaped at him as the AI spoke again. “Sentinel Harkness, do you accept this offer of sponsorship?”
“Before, you were going to hide me for a few months at most, until the heat died down,” Jeremy said, staring at Nick. “Not my entire life.”
“I changed my mind.” Nick gazed steadily into the younger man’s eyes. “Nothing is as precious as a second chance, Jeremy. What are you going to do with yours?”
Jeremy turned to look at Medusa’s unconscious body. “I accept the offer.”
“The sponsorship agreement has been duly registered and recorded,” said the AI. “Sentinel Harkness, you are required to present yourself to an Armistice Security facility within six hours for entry processing into the Armistice Zone. Failure to comply will result in severe penalties, up to and including imprisonment, forcible deportation, or final death. On behalf of the Triumvirate Council of North America, I welcome you among the Free People. Walk in the Light, Sentinel. Forensic recording terminated.”
Nick turned to face Scott. “Can you take him to the local chapterhouse?”
Scott shifted back to human form and nodded. “Come with me, Jeremy,” he said with unconcealed hostility. Ignoring the Sentinel’s bristling fury, Jeremy walked over to Scott, who placed his hand on Jeremy’s shoulder. The two men vanished with a crack of displaced air.
Nick was left on the stage with Ana, surrounded by the fallen terrorists.
“So, now what?” Ana gestured to the mess of bodies.
“Well, obviously, this didn’t work out exactly the way I planned.”
“Yeah, I kind of guessed that. It’s certainly going to put a crimp in all of our lives.”
“Things are different now. The humans know we’re here. We won’t be able to hide from them anymore.”
“We can try.”
“It’s too late for that.” He took a deep breath. “Well, I think my concert tonight is going to be canceled.”
Ana snorted. “You always did go the extra mile to get a day off, Nick.”
Nick grinned. “I might as well go and report.”
“If you don’t mind, I think I’ll take some time to explain this whole mess to my husband. I’ll meet you at Armistice Security Headquarters in a couple of hours. Will that be enough time for the Triumvirate to finish kicking your ass over how this went down?”
“Honestly? No, probably not. But I’ll be waiting when you arrive back in Anchorpoint.”
Ana’s staff flared as a radiant white light whisked her away.
Alone, Nick looked around at the bodies lying on the floor and the wisps of smoke rising lazily from the bomb. Then he took a deep breath and turned toward the cameras.
“Humans,” he said clearly, giving them his best showman’s smile, “we’ll be in touch.”
Then he gathered his will and jumped away.
THE TERRORIST
CHAPTER 5
Armistice Security Headquarters, Anchorpoint City, Grand Mesa, Colorado; Two hours after public exposure
Her skin dark against the ivory silk of her dress, Layla Magister Curallorn, called Nemesis, the Triumvirate Council Speaker for the Dawn, stood at attention before the window of the Council Chamber and calmly looked out over the city lights. Sean Magister Jiao-long, the Speaker for the Damned, known to his friends as Rory, paced in the open space behind her. He was running tactical simulations in his head, awaiting the more complex predictive model to finish compiling with the master AI. As always, he couldn’t hide his feelings, his face creased with concern as he contemplated the disaster. Takeshi Nakamura, the Speaker for the Watch, sat serenely at the conference table, seeming outwardly tranquil.
Curious, Layla thought. Empires rise and fall, but they always seem to be taken by surprise when it happens, no matter how inevitable. It was a pattern she had seen play out many times before. This time, however, the outcome was entirely predictable. The wages of trusting such a delicat
e operation to that fool Nicholas, she thought.
Three hours earlier
Nick stepped off the teleport gateway into the Council Chamber to find the Triumvirate already there and watching the terrorist broadcast from Los Angeles.
Her aristocratic African features appearing unconcerned, Nemesis watched the human drama play out with all the detachment only five thousand years of perspective could offer. Dressed in black as usual, Rory sat at the conference table. The cross brands that marked his hands filled the room with harsh white light. Takeshi leaned back against the wraparound window that ran the circumference of the council chamber. He was dressed casually in a gray T-shirt and black jeans, and his face was composed, giving away none of his thoughts. To Nick’s vampire senses, however, Takeshi’s barely controlled fury lit up the room as much as the light of the Grace contained in Rory’s hands. “Are you going to do something?” Nick asked.
Turning away from the virtual screen that floated above the conference table, Rory sighed. “Nick, I want to help as much as you do, but we can’t interfere without an invitation. We made those laws absolute for situations exactly like this. The best we can do is jump our people out of harm’s way. It’s been that way for thousands of years.”
“Is that the only reason?” Nick’s eyes narrowed. “Fine, then we already have an invitation.”
Rory blinked. “What?”
Nick accessed the virtual display and replayed the end of Medusa’s speech. “There, you see? She invited a member of the government to inspect the bomb. She didn’t specify the Americans. We have a perfectly valid excuse to enter the building, but only if we go now. That invite expires in under forty minutes.”
Layla stared at him, appalled. “You can’t be serious. We were discussing a covert action. To exercise that invitation would require you openly to present yourself as a Triumvirate representative. Even if you get close enough to the stage to speak to her, she won’t believe your credentials.”
“She might,” Takeshi spoke up reluctantly, “if he teleported directly onto the stage.” He pushed himself away from the window, walked back toward the center of the room, and stood next to the other members of the Triumvirate. Ignoring the disbelieving gazes of his fellow Speakers, Takeshi pressed on. “Yes, it’s a restricted disclosure, but Nick is right, we have an invitation. An unprovoked assault on a declared Triumvirate representative who is acting in the line of duty is a class-two Armistice breach, which strips the perpetrator of any treaty protections. We never specified that such an offense didn’t apply to humans when we wrote the treaty, because it never came up before.
“As the law stands, if he goes in as our agent and gets her to attack him, we will be within our rights to intervene directly.” Takeshi fixed Nick with a stern glance. “That holds true only if you maintain the terms of the Armistice Declaration. You can’t kill any of them, or initiate an attack on your own, or you become a criminal yourself. As soon as you open the door to a diplomatic incident, back off and let Scott and Anaba handle it. They’re Armistice Security, so they can legitimately intervene on our behalf under the terms of the treaty.”
“Scott’s in Australia, Take,” Nick said. “I was only supposed to be here in Anchorpoint for a couple of hours before jumping back there for our concert tonight.”
“Well, get him here, fast.” Rory turned to Takeshi. “Take, you get Ana over here from New York, and they’ll infiltrate the building ahead of Nick and triangulate his final jump onto the stage.”
Takeshi closed his eyes and communicated with Ana over their psychic link.
Rory growled at Nick. “As soon as you’re in, declare yourself and try to push Medusa’s buttons. When she attacks you, hang back and call in the cavalry. I’m trusting you here, Nicholas. Don’t screw this up.”
Moving away from the Triumvirate, Nick contacted Scott over their own link. In a matter of moments, the two Sentinels joined them in the Council Chamber.
“Are you sure this is the way you want things to play out?” asked Scott, incredulous.
Anaba nodded vigorously. “No matter what happens, we’ll be putting a lot of dangerous information out there.”
“This is Nick’s game to play,” said Layla, as she washed her hands of the whole enterprise. “It will be up to him to minimize the damage.” She sat at the conference table with practiced grace. “Creator save us all.”
* * *
“Can you get inside?” Takeshi asked once their AIs had opened up a communications link.
“The entrances are heavily guarded, so we’ll wait until the government representative arrives,” Ana subvocalized to her AI implants. “We’ll jump inside by line of sight as soon as they open the doors.”
Takeshi faced the virtual screen, which showed the terrorist leader standing on the stage next to the podium. “Shuriken,” he told his AI, “stand by to jump Special Agents Phillips and Nizhoni back to Anchorpoint on my command.” He turned to Nick. “At the first sign that this is going bad, I’m going to pull them out. You might have a slight chance of protecting yourself from a blast of that magnitude; they don’t.”
“Agreed.”
A few minutes later, Ana’s voice came again. “We’re inside. It will take us a few minutes to reach the main theater.”
They watched tensely as the minutes ticked by and Medusa presented her terms to the FBI agent. Layla’s eyes narrowed as she listened. “She is just playing games. She never intended to negotiate and will detonate the device no matter what.”
“We have coordinates,” subvocalized Scott. “Nick is clear to jump whenever he wants.”
“Go now, if you must,” Layla told Nick. “There is no more time.”
With a deep breath, Nick jumped to the coordinates Scott had supplied him with over the link. He immediately appeared on the stage in a flash of light.
Rory’s eyes lost focus as he fed all of his perceptions into the probability matrix in his head and broadcast his findings telepathically to the other two members of the Triumvirate. “Baseline probability of success at forty-five percent.”
“Better than I expected,” Take commented, paying close attention as Nick introduced himself and explained that he wasn’t human. Take nodded as Medusa ordered her men to throw Nick out. Then Nick grabbed one of the terrorists around the neck and lifted him off the floor.
“No!” Takeshi said angrily. “She has to start the fight! What is he trying to do?”
“He is establishing himself as a threat in her mind, rather than a curiosity. Well-played, Nicholas.” Layla smiled slightly. “That was more subtle than I expected of you.”
Rory agreed. “Probability of success now fifty-five percent and increasing.”
Takeshi looked back at the screen. “I stand corrected.” He frowned as Medusa backed down and allowed Nick to examine the bomb. “Damn. What is she afraid of?”
“Pure narcissism,” Layla said contemptuously. “She wishes to die with her people singing her praises. Nicholas is tarnishing her perfection in their eyes, so she wishes to be rid of him quietly, rather than in open challenge where her position could be questioned.” She considered for a second or two. “Scott, can you hear me?”
“Yes.”
“Use your link to tell Nicholas he must make himself the terrorists’ champion if he is to provoke her into rash action.”
“I’ll tell him.” Scott paused for a moment. “I’m detecting a number of minds with hostile intent closing on the building from multiple directions. I think the Americans are finally making their move.”
“Keep them out,” instructed Takeshi. “Use passive shields across the entryways and external walls. We can claim we were protecting Nick’s negotiations. The last thing we need is for soldiers to start shooting up the place while we’re trying to save them.”
Rory watched the screen as Rapier reported his analysis of the weapon’s destructive potential. “Probability of success now sixty percent and holding.”
Considering the information N
ick’s AI had offered, Take then addressed the security monitors. “Command Access.”
“Online,” said a voice from above them.
“Initiate a new tactical update to be broadcast system-wide over the planetary communication grid. A level five emergency is now declared in the city of Los Angeles, California, subspecification: nuclear attack. Teleport evacuation of all Armistice personnel from the Greater Los Angeles area is to commence ten seconds after broadcast. Authorization code Nakamura four-three-five-seven, authentication keyword ‘honorbound’.”
“Champion clearance confirmed. Message processed and ready for transmission.”
“Execute.”
“Transmission complete.”
Takeshi focused on Nick’s conversation again. “Initiate teleport evacuation of all Armistice personnel from the greater Los Angeles area, with the exception of Nicholas Magister Luscian, Anaba Nizhoni, and Scott Phillips.”
“Teleport sequence ready.”
“Execute.”
“Confirmed. Evacuation protocol in progress.”
On the screen, Nick smiled at Medusa and asked, “Just out of curiosity, what’s your real angle?”
Layla nodded in approval. “Good. Questioning her motives will help drive her to rage.”
“Nick performed a deep read on her,” Scott said through his com implants. “This is all some kind of personal vendetta against the city. Everything she’s told them about her motives is bullshit. He’s trying to think of some credible way to unmask her.”
Sunset (Pact Arcanum) Page 4
