Liang laughed. “Do the Children of Twilight have such short memories? I am Liang Primogenitor Jiao-long.” He smiled. “An inventive trap. I applaud you for your ingenuity. What name shall I whisper over your grave, Sentinel?”
“Primogenitor,” the Sentinel said in disgust. “I had hoped for Jiao-long himself, but I guess I’ll have to settle for second-in-command.” He drew himself up. “I am Takeshi Nakamura, the Wind of Earth.”
Liang continued to smile, covering his surprise at the revelation. He looked pointedly at each of the Sentinels before him, fixing their features in his awareness. Then he reached out to his Master over their blood-magic link and sent him the full memory of the battle so far. “Father, our enemy has shown himself.”
Jiao-long’s acerbic voice commanded over the bloodline, “Kill the Wind of Earth if you can. If you fail, then I will avenge you, my son. Fight well.”
Without another word, Liang silently ordered his remaining forces to attack. As the vampires leapt forward to strike, Antonio and Thomas launched bolts of white fire to immediately pick them off, one by one, from behind their shields. Helena teleported around the room, clutching two knives sheathed in flames and dealing punishment to any vampires able to raise shields strong enough to block the Fire Sentinels’ attacks. Joseph shifted form, becoming some kind of tentacled horror that hurt to look at but was strong and versatile. He ensnared and immobilized vampires four at a time, allowing Marjorie to kill them with ease.
Meanwhile, Liang launched himself directly at Takeshi, who blocked Liang’s strike with his katana and returned his stroke. Simultaneously, Rory leapt sideways and slashed horizontally with his cutlass, in perfect synchrony with Ana, who lashed out with her staff trailing orange fire. To avoid their coordinated, three-pronged attack, Liang had no choice but to retreat and fight defensively. He knew the combat skills the Gift imparted to the Wind of Earth were superior to anything any Nightwalker could command. He had only minutes to gain an advantage against Takeshi until his own forces were dispatched and the other Sentinels could come to Takeshi’s aid. If he did not win this battle quickly, he would almost certainly die here.
Rory struck high, aiming for Liang’s throat. The Sentinel’s blade was sheathed in holy fire, and it sliced through Liang’s shield and grazed his neck as he twisted to the side. Knowing that Ana would use the opportunity to strike at his exposed flank, Liang steeled himself but still felt the shock of her staff burning through his shield and then punching into his side, where it seared a trail deep into his flesh. He staggered forward involuntarily, raising his sword to block Takeshi’s stroke, which aimed to take his head off.
Takeshi struck for his head but simultaneously pulled a wakizashi sword from his belt to nick the inside of the Nightwalker’s exposed wrist. The spellworked steel of the short sword slashed the tendons of Liang’s sword arm, its charmed edge preventing the Nightwalker from regenerating the damage. Liang watched helplessly as his blade tumbled to the floor. He had only seconds left. Sweeping his arms in a wide circle, he forced the Winds to dodge his talons and used the brief respite to gather his power. With the accumulated strength of three thousand years in the dark, he cast one final spell.
All of his energy exploded in a single burst of ferocious light, consuming him utterly. The room was obliterated and the rubble of the building reduced to dust and ash in an instant. Nothing remained to mark the building’s presence but a perfectly spherical, molten-glass-lined crater extending deep into the earth.
* * *
Shaking off the disorientation of the teleport matrix, Takeshi glanced around the hotel room and then at Rory and Ana—both mirrored his shock. “What happened?”
“Radiant Burn,” Antonio said from behind them.
Rory faced him. “What are you talking about?”
“It’s a spell that allows the caster to convert his body into energy,” Ana explained. “It takes a huge amount of power to cast, so only a master spellcaster can even try. Jesus.” She looked around the room. “We should be dead.”
Takeshi glanced around the hotel room. “How did we get away?”
“When I cast the jumper block over the base, I added a subroutine that would trigger an automatic jump back to safe coordinates if a Radiant Burn was initiated,” Antonio said, drawing himself up. “Your predecessor died that way in Alexandria, along with the other Winds of my generation. I decided I would not be caught unaware again, so I routinely add that spell to any jumper block I cast.”
Takeshi stepped closer, balling his fists. “Antonio,” he growled, “where are the others?”
Antonio sagged with sudden exhaustion. “After you three opened your eyes, I added you to the spell. It was just habit, Takeshi. I never even noticed I cast the spell or I would have added them to the parameters. I swear it.”
“You left them there to die?” Rory whispered.
“I told you, Sentinel, there is little room in our lives for fairness.”
April 2020; House Jiao-long Stronghold, Grand Mesa, Colorado
Jiao-long Firstborn put down his brush and studied the eight portraits he had painted. The four Sentinels from the Denver quad he dismissed. Antonio, he knew from Alexandria. He focused his attention on the last three portraits: Rory, Ana, and Take.
Turning to one of his Consuls, who was standing at attention, he pointed to the latter paintings. “The one in the center is named Takeshi Nakamura. Find him and the other two, if they still live. Learn everything there is to know about them.”
The Consul bowed. “Your will, Father.”
Jiao-long reached out along the bloodline to the remaining vampires of his house. “My Children, we have lost much, but there will be a reckoning. Come to me, all of you, and together we will craft our vengeance.”
JIAO-LONG FIRSTBORN
CHAPTER 7
August 2020; Seattle, Washington; Four months later
Rory filled his plate from the dinner buffet and returned to the private room of the hotel restaurant. God, it’s been a long tour, he thought. Between their stage show and their secret coordination of Sentinel activity in Asia and the western United States, it was no wonder he was tired. So far, no one in the vampire community had figured out who they actually were, thanks to Antonio acting as intermediary between Takeshi and most of the other Sentinels. Both the tour and this phase of the war were ending, however. Maybe now our lives might go back to being somewhat normal.
“Mind if I join you?”
Rory’s thoughts were interrupted by a teenager with an infectious grin. Not waiting for an answer, the kid sat down beside him, completely confident of his welcome.
Rory smiled. “Of course.” He liked Nick Jameson, whose band, Prussian Blue, had joined the tour as an opening act. The young musician was a flirt, though, and as the tour had wound to a close, he had become more aggressive in pursuing Rory. Rory didn’t mind. It was harmless. If I can’t have Takeshi, why not play along? I’ll probably never get up the courage to tell Take about my feelings, anyway. Under normal circumstances, his relationship with Take would have been resolved years ago, but while his best friend still gave him mixed signals, neither had time—especially not with their double lives—to make commitments. It’s just one more way the Gift screwed up everything. Snapping out of his reverie, he asked, “How are you doing today, Nick?”
“Can’t complain. Tonight’s show went great. I’m looking forward to the end of the tour, though. How about you?” Nick dug into his salad as he waited for an answer.
“It’ll be nice to go home for a while,” admitted Rory. “Less than a month and I can see my family again.”
Nick raised his eyebrows. “You guys are the headliners. You couldn’t bring your families on tour with you?”
“Unlike us, they’ve got ‘real’ jobs. They come out when they have time, but it isn’t often.” Rory took a sip of his beer. “Doing anything to celebrate the end of your first national tour?”
“Not yet.” A sly expression crossed Nick�
��s face. “Would you care to join me for a private party?”
Okay, enough is enough. “Nick, I like you.” Rory leaned forward. “Really. You’re cool.” He noticed Nick brighten at the unexpected compliment but pressed on. “But you’re seventeen years old, and I’m twenty-seven. Surely you realize nothing’s going to happen between us.”
“I’m not a kid, Rory.” Nick looked away and toyed with his food.
“I never said you were. You’re smart, and you’re mature for your age. But I’m not the one for you. Find someone who can see life from your perspective. You deserve someone who can meet your stride, and that isn’t me.”
Nick mulled over Rory’s words for a moment. “It doesn’t have to be that serious.” He grinned again. “Maybe I just need a little one-on-one coaching.”
Rory laughed. “You never give up, do you?”
Nick propped his head on his hands and smirked. “Not when I see something I want.”
“Nick, I’m kind of taken,” Rory said, smiling at Nick’s enthusiasm.
“Oh. Oh, crap. Sorry.”
“No problem.” He waved away Nick’s discomfort. “I should have mentioned it before, but it was fun to watch you try to hit on me.”
Nick reddened. “Fun?”
Rory grinned. “I liked it.”
Nick sat back in his chair, mollified. “So,” he said finally, picking up his glass of ginger ale and taking a sip, “rain check?”
Rory laughed again. “Definitely.”
“I should get to work on my homework, anyway,” Nick said with a grimace. “What good is getting out of going to school if you still have to do all the work?”
“Are you going to tour through your senior year, as well?”
“Nah. Mom thinks I need to experience it for real, so she’s already enrolled me in a prep school in New England. I had to go there for an interview and everything.” He paused. “The student they detailed to show me around was actually pretty cool, though. We really clicked. He’s a musician, too. We jammed a little when we were supposed to be having lunch. His name’s Scott, and he invited me to start a new band with him and some of his buddies once the school year starts. It might not entirely suck after all.”
Rory smiled at him. “I’m happy for you then.”
* * *
“So you’re sure this is Jiao-long’s stronghold?” asked Takeshi once Rory had rejoined the other Sentinels in their hotel suite. A holographic map was projected across the table in front of them, and although Ana and Antonio had looked up when Rory entered, Take was so intent on studying it he hadn’t even acknowledged Rory’s entrance.
“As sure as we can be,” Antonio said. “We’ve hit all of his bases in Asia and the Western U.S., but we don’t know the exact location of the last fortress. So far, Jiao-long’s spells have prevented us from locating his personal sanctum, but from past experience we think those protections are tied directly to his physical presence. If we find him, we find the base.”
“What makes you think it’s in Colorado?” Ana asked.
Antonio smiled. “Negative space. It has the usual density of vampires in the major cities, but we haven’t yet located any large nests. We think they’re all based at a central location. And then there’s Liang—there must be a reason he surfaced in Denver.”
“He went down like all the rest,” Take said belligerently. “If that’s the best Jiao-long can do, he won’t be as hard to take out as I thought.”
Antonio frowned his disapproval. “Don’t get overconfident, Takeshi. Jiao-long is the only one of the Firstborn left, other than Luscian himself. He didn’t survive for tens of thousands of years by being a pushover. You may be the strongest fighter I’ve met in my career, but your best weapon is that they don’t know you well enough to predict your movements or attacks.” He glanced at the map then tapped the projector on the table to shut it off. “In any case, we’ve got Air and Fire Sentinels canvassing the state remotely to see if we can narrow down our search area. I’ll let you know what we find out.”
Take nodded. “Keep me informed.” He turned to Rory, finally, and smiled.
Over the link, Rory could tell it was an honest smile: just the smile of a friend pushing the war to the back of his mind. Sometimes it seemed like Jiao-long meant more to Takeshi than Rory did, but Rory wasn’t jealous. He knew Take well enough to know his friend worried they would never be safe while the threat of a Nightwalker attack hung over their heads. Rory understood, and he could wait until Take thought it was safe to live their lives. In the meantime, he lived for the stolen moments of normality in their public and secret worlds. In the end, those moments might be all they had.
PART II: THE GAUNTLET
CHAPTER 8
September 2020, Portland, Oregon
Antonio went over the information provided by the Denver quads. Something was up. Vampire attacks in the past month had dropped to zero everywhere in the western states except for Colorado. Clearly, the remains of House Jiao-long had retreated to their hidden base somewhere in the state. It was the only explanation that made sense. The question was whether they were going to ground long enough for them to rebuild their strength, or if there was a major offensive in the making.
A faint rustle caught his attention, and he looked to the front of his hotel room in time to see a white envelope slide under the door. He got up from his desk and went to the door, extending his senses through the wood to probe the hallway beyond. Nothing.
He picked up the unmarked envelope and opened it. Inside was a single sheet of paper wrapped around a photograph. He unfolded the letter and read the short message in Arcolin pictograms.
Ten minutes. Come alone and tell no one, or he dies. Cooperate and he goes free and unharmed.
Under the message was a set of teleport parameters. Numbly, he looked at the photograph and saw an image of Nick on stage, playing his guitar.
Immediately, he tapped the line of the tracking spell he maintained on Nick. It dead-ended, the trace severed. He cast a scrying spell and sent his perceptions flying across the city, stopping within a bar at the last recorded location. Inside, he saw the other members of Nick’s band, laughing and drinking, but Nick wasn’t there. Taken. By the blockade of his tracking spell, he knew he wasn’t dealing with human kidnappers. They could have jumped him anywhere by now.
Antonio weighed his options. The boy is probably still alive, or they wouldn’t have offered to let him go. Vampire honor wouldn’t allow them to lie about killing him. Antonio knew his best course of action was to do nothing. The boy doesn’t matter in the grand scheme of things. The only thing holding me to protect him is my word.
He memorized the jump coordinates, then filled his hands with mystic flames that burned the letter and photograph to ashes. My word is enough.
* * *
Antonio looked around as the teleport matrix faded. He was in a large open space that looked industrial. Probably a warehouse. There was no one in view but Nick and a tall African woman, but there could be any number of Nightwalkers present if they were shielding their auras and hiding behind shrouds of invisibility. Nick was sitting quietly in a chair, his expression slack and vacant. The woman stood next to him, dressed formally in a dark blue gown. She watched him with casual interest, unconcerned for her own safety.
Antonio, of course, recognized her immediately: Layla Magister Curallorn, leader of the vampires that infested the eastern United States. From what intelligence he’d been able to gather on her over the years, she was known for her skill at Court intrigue. “Why did you take Nick and not someone else?”
She raised an eyebrow at his bluntness but answered anyway. “I learned of your debt of honor to Sentinel Edgar Jameson quite some time ago. We were originally going to use him as the bait, but an active Sentinel would be difficult prey under any circumstances. Nicholas was simply an expedient choice.”
Antonio folded his arms. “Well, I’m here, so let him go.”
She tossed a set of charmed restr
aints on the floor between them. “Put those on.”
“If I do, you’ll kill him anyway.”
“We are not animals, Sentinel. I have given you my word that he will go free and unharmed if you cooperate. Put on the restraints, and my people will return him to his celebration before his friends even notice his absence. He will remember nothing. My people have even maintained their shields around him, so that his Gift would remain dormant. He is a pawn whose part is played out. I see no reason to prevent him from retiring from the board in peace.”
Antonio looked at the restraints on the ground. I’m dead the moment I put them on. A fragment of conversation came back to him, from the night before the assault in Alexandria. “Someday, he’ll break his mother’s heart and get himself killed for the cause, just like I will.”
Antonio picked up the restraints and locked them around his wrists. But not today.
CHAPTER 9
September 2020; Portland, Oregon
Takeshi woke to a pounding at the door. He climbed out of bed and pulled on a pair of track pants before stumbling toward the front door of their suite. As he passed her room, Ana darted into the hall, her crystal staff out and ready. She hid behind a bend in the wall, watching Take extend a psychic probe beyond the door to see who it was.
“Shit!” He immediately unlocked the door and disarmed the perimeter ward. “What happened?” he asked, nodding at Antonio’s disheveled appearance.
Antonio snorted and entered the suite. “Some of the new teams in Denver refused to believe I was acting under your orders when I asked them to send reconnaissance parties into the areas where we believe Jiao-long’s base of operations are situated.” He indicated the fading bruise on his face. “They expressed themselves quite eloquently.”
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