Sunset (Pact Arcanum)

by Arshad Ahsanuddin

“Are you saying you were possessed?”

  “Pretty much. The magic of the Crown and Sword is an abomination. Nothing more completely evil exists on this level of reality. If I could break open the Crown and set them all free, I’d do it in a heartbeat, but I don’t know how. Luscian created it using magic that has been lost since the First Age—powers I can’t duplicate. I’m not strong enough on my own to unravel the spell.” His expression grew haunted. “I swore to myself I would never draw the sword, that nothing could ever justify using it. But when Zachariah attacked me in London, it was the first thing I reached for. The memory of calling it to my hand, being ready to strike him down with it, will stay fresh in my mind forever.”

  Jeremy stared at him thoughtfully. “I appreciate your honesty, Nicholas.” He stood, glancing at the pile of boxes before turning back to Nick. “Thanks for coming by. I should get unpacked, and I’m sure you have stuff to do.”

  “Do you need any help?”

  “You’re my Magister now, and the new Ambassador to Humanity. Are you actually offering to help me move in?”

  Nick shrugged. “I have some time. And, honestly, I could use something mundane to take my mind off the job.”

  Jeremy flashed him a grin, just for an instant. “Then I would be glad for the help, my Lord.”

  January 2040; Federal Transfer Center, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma; Ten days after public exposure

  The terrorist known as Medusa sat stiffly in her chair as the guard unshackled her wrists and cuffed her to the table. They’d learned to be careful around her after she had calmly beaten another inmate half to death when the would-be predator had drawn a shiv. Finished securing her bonds, the guard exited, leaving her alone with her visitor. He was a younger man in his mid-thirties, dressed in a crisply pressed gray suit. His eyes burned intently behind gold-rimmed glasses. He sat silently for a time, his hands clasped in front of him on the table. Finally, he sighed. “This isn’t exactly how I pictured your retirement party, Elizabeth.”

  She shrugged. “You always suffered from an overactive imagination, Andrew.”

  “Your final operation was thwarted by a vampire, and you’re calling my imagination overactive?” He snorted.

  “My operation was thwarted, as you say, by a turncoat. The vampire was obviously under some kind of restraint or he would have disposed of my men sooner. No, Harkness was the one who abandoned his duties, and his betrayal gave the vampire an opportunity to act.”

  “Our analysts agree. But your hands aren’t exactly clean here, Liz. You didn’t tell them about Tom and Martin, and that lie of omission is what set your boy off.”

  “Don’t call him my boy!” she snapped. “Jeremy Harkness was a social misfit in a sensitive position. His pedantic idealism made him a perfect target for exploitation. His disloyalty brought me down, not my tactics.”

  Andrew shook his head ruefully. “They were all there only because they believed in you, Elizabeth. I’ve interviewed quite a number of your operatives. They couldn’t believe you would turn traitor unless out of patriotism. None of them were around when the police who gunned down your husband and son were acquitted, so they never saw you at your worst. It was a stroke of genius to recruit from the student body, when they were too green to know better. How many years have you been putting this operation together?”

  She frowned at him coldly. “Is there a point to this discussion, Agent Kensington?”

  “I can’t give you back your family,” Kensington said, leaning forward. “I can’t let you have your revenge against the city. But I can give you free rein against the man who blocked your play.”

  Her eyes narrowed. “You’re after the vampire.”

  “The vampire, his associates, his organization. They’re all unknown threats. You’re a gifted analyst. I could use you on my team.”

  She laughed and rattled her restraints. “Aren’t you forgetting something?”

  “I can’t get you out, not yet. You’re too high profile. But if you prove yourself to be a valuable asset, I might be able to work something out, once the heat dies down.”

  “An empty promise to a desperate woman. You’re all heart, Kensington.”

  “Do you have a better offer?”

  She continued to smile at him as she considered her options. “Show me what you have.”

  Kensington reached into his briefcase and pulled out several folders. The first one contained a thick stack of printed pages, topped by a picture of Nick. “The primary target is Nicholas Lawrence Jameson. This is everything we know about him.” He slid the folder toward her.

  Hindered by her handcuffs, she flipped the pages with difficulty, and began to read.

  PART III

  DIPLOMACY

  CHAPTER 11

  February 2040; Washington, D.C.; Two weeks after public exposure

  A chime sounded through the lobby of the Truman building, interrupting the orderly flow of traffic in and out of the State Department and causing people to stop and look around, seeking the source of the musical tone. A moment later, a white flash illuminated the room and two men and a woman appeared in the center of the lobby. Nick, dressed in a white suit with a lapel pin bearing the Daywalker symbol, was flanked by Scott and Ana, who both wore charcoal gray with lapel pins symbolic of Armistice Security and appropriate to their element. All three wore pale yellow sunglasses and had a motif of three interlocked spirals embroidered on the left breast pocket of their suit jackets. People hurried out of their way as they strode toward the security desk.

  “Excuse me.” Nick addressed the guards. “My name is Nicholas Magister Luscian, representing the Triumvirate Council of North America. If possible, I would like to speak to either the Secretary of State or the Chief of Protocol. I don’t have an appointment.”

  Four hours later, they were sitting casually on the antique furniture in one of the diplomatic reception rooms, silently conversing over their psychic link. Secret Service agents lined the walls around them and watched their every move. A door opened. All three stood as Secretary of State Caroline Matthews entered with a pair of assistants. She walked forward to stand in front of them, her eyes meeting theirs in open challenge.

  “Gentlemen. Lady,” she said, nodding to them and smoothing her navy blue suit with a firm hand. “What brings you to Washington?”

  “Madam Secretary,” said Nick, “my government wishes to open diplomatic relations with the human governments of North America, including the United States.”

  “I’m afraid that will not be possible, Mr. Jameson,” she answered curtly with a shake of her head. “Your ‘government’ has no validity.”

  “I assure you that we do, Madam Secretary. All members of the Free People in North America have personally and explicitly affirmed the authority of the Triumvirate as a matter of law.”

  “The Triumvirate has no authority, as a matter of law, Mr. Jameson,” she insisted with an air of irritation. “What makes you think you can set up a paramilitary government within the United States, in clear violation of our sovereignty, and expect us to accept you as a foreign nation within our own borders?”

  “There is already significant historical precedent for that position, Madam Secretary,” answered Nick. “You respect, by treaty, the right of the Native Americans to govern themselves, although you regard their territories as exclusive rather than overlapping with yours. The cultures of the Free People predate theirs by tens of thousands of years. The Triumvirate is simply the most recent expression of our sovereign right to exercise self-determination.”

  Secretary Matthews blinked and masked an amused smile before speaking again. “That is a very interesting legal position, Mr. Jameson. Are you suggesting we allow your people, with all their power, to be immune from our laws and leave it up to you to maintain order?”

  Nick shrugged. “We do that already, Madam Secretary. Honestly, there’s nothing in your laws that applies to our people when we exercise our abilities. We are completely outside your experience when no
t trying to blend into your society. When we live as humans, however, we are content to yield to the constraints of human law. After all, you never even knew we were here before the events in Los Angeles.”

  “That much is true,” she agreed.

  Scott reached into his jacket, and Nick felt the sudden tension of the Secret Service agents standing around them. The Water Sentinel removed a tightly-rolled scroll of cream-colored vellum from an inner pocket and held it out to her. “Secretary Matthews, this is a copy of the Armistice Declaration of 2021 for you to review at your leisure, as well as an up-to-date version of the Rules of Engagement. These two documents form the essential framework of all our laws. We hope they will give you sufficient confidence in our intentions to open a dialogue between our two governments.”

  The Secretary accepted it from him, turning the scroll to view the gold wax seal that held it closed. It was embossed with the same triple spiral design that adorned their jackets. “What is this symbol?” she asked.

  “The triskelion is the seal of the Triumvirate. It represents the interlocked destinies of the Children of Magic: Nightwalker, Daywalker, and Sentinel,” Ana explained. She reached up and tapped the red sword in the circle on her lapel pin. “The circle divided between light and darkness is the symbol for Armistice Security. The sword is for Sentinels.”

  Nick pointed to the symbol on his own badge. “For Daywalkers, the silver cross signifies the Grace, and the gold circles represent the Light. The Nightwalkers use a stylized black cross and circle, outlined in gold, to mark the possibility of redemption.”

  She tapped the scroll against her fingertips, considering their words. “I will bring your arguments to the attention of the President and Congress,” she said finally. “If they choose to respect your desire for formal recognition, I will not stand in the way of accrediting the Triumvirate as a foreign government. I’m afraid it will be a hard sell, however, even if I, myself, were actually convinced of its legitimacy.”

  “We hope you will give our offer serious consideration before making your final recommendation, Madam Secretary,” said Nick.

  “You should probably move fast, though, if you want to discuss the matter with them privately,” Ana suggested.

  Secretary Matthews turned to her, frowning. “Meaning what, exactly?”

  “We sent both documents to the Los Angeles Times, Washington Post, and New York Times this morning, as well as the major Canadian and Mexican news outlets. We also sent documents relating to our legal analysis and defense of Triumvirate sovereignty,” said Ana. “As near as we can determine, they’re already going to press. The full story will hit the web by this evening, if not earlier.”

  Secretary Matthews allowed herself to smile openly, but her voice was distinctly unfriendly as she said, “Pressure tactics. Not exactly a cordial diplomatic strategy.”

  “Madam Secretary, our people have lived in a state of guarded peace, surrounded by enemies, for fewer than two decades after more than thirty thousand years of war,” Nick elaborated, his voice icy. “‘Cordial’ isn’t exactly in our tactical vocabulary.”

  “I will keep that in mind when I make my recommendation to the President,” she answered. She stared at him thoughtfully. “Can I ask you a personal question, Mr. Jameson?”

  “By all means.”

  “Last week, in Los Angeles, if you hadn’t discovered Mr. Harkness to be one of you, would you have stood by and let the city burn?”

  “I lived in L.A. for a long time, Madam Secretary,” Nick said quietly, standing perfectly still as he focused all of his attention on her. “I moved away less than a year ago, and it still feels like home to me. But our laws were specifically designed to prevent any of us from imposing our will upon major human events without invitation. We were not meant to be part of human history, just as human conflicts have not played a significant role in ours. It has been that way for tens of thousands of years. I had hoped that, somehow, I could provoke Medusa into giving me an excuse to intervene, but otherwise I had no legal or honorable basis to interfere once our people were evacuated and were no longer under direct threat. If she had not tried to kill Jeremy in front of me, then yes, I would have walked away and let them all die.” His eyes met her stare. “In a way, every person in the city owes Jeremy Harkness their lives.”

  “I don’t think they see it that way,” she said coolly.

  “That’s their privilege. It doesn’t mean they’re right.”

  “We’re not human, Madam Secretary,” said Ana. “It would be a mistake to judge us by human ethics.”

  “The Armistice is a constant balancing act between our instinctive need to fight, on the one hand, versus our desire to evade conflict and rise above our natures, on the other,” said Scott. “For that reason, our laws are fairly absolute, to keep the balance firmly in place. That’s why I had to publicly put Nick on trial after he stopped the bombing.”

  A series of white symbols appeared on the right lens of Ana’s sunglasses. “Guys, we have to get going,” she said.

  The Secretary raised an eyebrow. “Do you have somewhere else you need to be?”

  “Actually, yes.” Scott slipped his sunglasses on. “You kept us waiting a little longer than expected. We have a meeting in Ottawa in twenty minutes, with the Canadian Minister of Foreign Affairs and their Chief of Protocol.” He grinned at the Secretary in amusement. “Unlike your office, they didn’t hang up on us when we called for an appointment.”

  From his breast pocket, Nick pulled out a blue business card stamped with the triskelion symbol in white, gray, and black foil, and handed it to the Secretary. “This is the address and phone number of our local base of operations here in Washington. Let them know if you wish to discuss this matter further, once you’ve had a chance to speak with your government. I will get back to you as soon as possible. However, it would help if you also informed them of your protocols for contacting you directly. Alternatively, if you have any factual questions about Triumvirate policy or procedures, you can ask them. If they can’t help you themselves, they will pass your query up the line.”

  The Secretary read the title embossed on the card. “Ambassador to Humanity?”

  Nick shrugged as the two Sentinels moved to stand next to him. “It won’t be official until your government formally recognizes us, but in the meantime, I am your main contact for any questions you have regarding the Armistice. I expect the learning curve to be steep on both sides, Madam Secretary, but I’m hoping we can eventually come to some kind of accommodation.”

  Scott subvocalized a command to his AI, and the three disappeared in a burst of incandescence.

  The Secretary sighed. “And this began as such a good day.” She turned to one of her assistants. “Block me some time on the President’s calendar as soon as possible, and get the rest of the Cabinet to join us, but give me at least an hour or so to prepare.” She broke the wax seal on the scroll in her hand. “First, I have some reading to do.”

  February 2040; Chapel Hill, North Carolina; Three weeks after public exposure

  Nick pulled the heavy raw silk curtain away from the front windows and looked out over the crowd of reporters, TV cameras, and gawkers camped out on his front lawn, their faces lit by the green glow of the defense screen that extended six feet from the walls of the house. It’s been three weeks and there’s more of them every night. I wonder how long the homeowner’s association will wait before they get up the courage to evict me?

  He was glad now that he’d had Armistice Security set up the high-level security system when he’d first moved here. Scott had done the same thing to his home years ago, reasoning that it couldn’t hurt to have a little extra protection around his family, even if there had been no reason to activate it until now. Nick had offered the same level of security to the rest of his family, but his mother wasn’t speaking to him, and his sister was still mulling it over.

  He looked away from the window, at his brother sleeping on the couch. Toby was the only on
e who had readily agreed to take precautions. The Armistice engineers were still installing the technology in Toby’s San Francisco apartment after Nick had insisted upon a significant redesign so it could be operated without the need for an implanted AI interface. There was no way in hell he was going to allow his brother to be permanently tethered to Armistice technology, no matter how useful or benign. In the meantime, Toby was crashing with him. His lawyers were arguing with his record label and promoters over whether to drop Toby’s upcoming concert tour, the same way the Journeymen tour had been immediately shelved. Apparently, concerned parents didn’t want their children hanging out with unsavory creatures of the night.

  The cancellation of his own tour was fine with Nick—he didn’t want his fans caught in the crossfire when the Court of Shadows finally unleashed their retribution for him revealing them to the world. But he was sorry Toby was being tarred with the same brush. Toby was a gregarious sort, reveling in the social circles that had opened to him as his career took off. That those same circles were now closing ranks against him had to rankle. At least the other members of his brother’s band were solidly in Toby’s corner, threatening to dissolve the group entirely if Toby was kicked out.

  Toby didn’t seem to blame him for the whole mess and he was bearing up under the knowledge of his own supernatural nature with admirable grace. Nick suspected his brother’s request to stay with him had less to do with housing and more to do with trying to bridge the gulf between them, now that he knew Nick was a vampire. Nick smiled as he glanced protectively at his brother’s sleeping form, profoundly grateful for Toby’s efforts to include him. His mother and his sister had been ambivalent, if not outright hostile. Just one more situation I can’t control.

  It had been a week since Nick had made the rounds of the three governments. As expected, they had all waffled back and forth without making any promises. The publication of the Armistice Declaration and the Rules of Engagement had sparked a firestorm of controversy in all three countries, which was also to be expected. The simulations being run constantly by Armistice Security were taxing the AI-driven predictive models beyond their limits; no one knew how it would all shake out in the end. They would have to press on and see where this road would take them.