Nightfall (Pact Arcanum Integrated Serial Edition) (12 page)

“A Rune of Unbinding?” Rory’s voice was edged with disbelief. “What are you trying to do, setting one of those off in close quarters?”

“I am closing a door that should never have been reopened,” Ana answered coldly. She glared at Rory, her eyes hard and unyielding. “There will be no more bargains.” She tapped her staff against the floor, and the world turned white as she cast another spell. Then the three were standing back on the mesa, next to the new crater above Jiao-long’s underground fortress. Surrounding them was a large clearing where the trees had been blown down by the violence of the explosion.

“All right,” Ana said over the link. “We need to get away from here then we’ll decide what to do next. Rory, get us coordinates.”

Rory extended his senses to orient himself and calculate a bearing to teleport them away. Then he stiffened.
“Oh my God.”

“What’s wrong?” asked Take.

Wordlessly, Rory showed them exactly what he had detected: hundreds upon hundreds of vampires standing quietly around them, watching their every move.

They were surrounded.

NIGHTFALL

CHAPTER 14

September 2020; House Curallorn Stronghold, Cahokia Mound City, Collinsville, Illinois

Layla sat in her sanctum, the apex of an inverted pyramid that extended deeply underground beneath the ruins of her great city of Cahokia. Bright tapestries and artwork from her client civilizations in Africa and America surrounded her, and she stared at them in admiration as she sipped delicately at her goblet of bloodwine. The air was perfumed by fragrant woods, kept vibrant through magic, and the sharp tang of human blood. Layla watched as her forces surrounded Jiao-long’s stronghold. Using her spell-enhanced sight, she saw through the eyes of her Primogenitor, watching the red lights of her enemies perish one by one, dying at the hands of her hapless pawns. The light of their lives winked out as the Sentinel assault on the fortress continued.

Within minutes, all the lives in Jiao-long’s fortress had expired, except for the three Winds she had entrapped and the greater light of Jiao-long himself. Layla smiled, idly wondering if they would be strong enough to destroy the Firstborn vampire.
If not, no matter.
She had already arrayed her forces across the mesa above Jiao-long’s base. As soon as either side was dispatched, she would strike to dispose of the other. It was only a matter of time until her dominion was complete.

The light of Jiao-long’s life disappeared. Layla laughed out loud.
It was done!
The long game had finally come to an end—her opponent had been taken out of play. She was about to order her forces to enter the fortress and eliminate the Sentinels when she noticed one of the remaining three lives had changed, the light shifting from blue to red.
A new Nightwalker? How could that be?
The three mortals in the fortress had been Sentinels; she had seen to it herself.
How could one of them become Red?

Frowning, she watched as one of the blue lights went out. Minutes later, the other was also extinguished, leaving the red light alone in the fortress.
They killed each other. Extraordinary. Could Jiao-long have found a way to turn a Sentinel? A fledgling’s instincts would be to destroy any life that crossed its path, so it was plausible that a new vampire could turn on the others.
No, that is ridiculous. No fully-active Sentinel has been turned since the imposition of the Gift more than thirty thousand years ago. There must be some other explanation.

The spell she was using to view inside the fortress suddenly flared and burned out, and the psychic landscape rang like a bell as she felt the sun rise in the middle of the night, even from more than a thousand miles away. The mesa overlying the underground chamber at the heart of Jiao-long’s fortress exploded upward. Fractured stone and debris rained down across her forces. The trees were flattened around the site of the detonation, creating a wide clearing in the forest. A column of brilliant light burst out of the crater like a javelin, spearing upward into the night sky and burning away the overhanging clouds.

Fire and Darkness!
A mystical shockwave of such power could only be the result of an extra-planar incursion—the intrusion of another order of reality into this dimension.
One of the greater powers has intervened on this plane, for the first time in thousands of years.

She ruthlessly focused her thoughts, abandoning her strategies. Incursions were always linked to great upheavals in history, sometimes to the rise and fall of entire civilizations.
The origin of the event must be eliminated immediately if any of us are to survive. All other concerns are secondary.

Using the coordinates her Primogenitor supplied, she immediately teleported directly onto the battlefield and ordered her forces into the clearing. Just as she was about to send her forces into direct assault on the fortress, the white light of a teleport matrix formed in front of her. “
Surround it!”
she mentally instructed, as she walked forward alone to confront the threat. The light of the teleport matrix faded, revealing her three Sentinel proxies.
Impossible.
She had seen two of them die.
What could it mean?

* * *

Take felt Ana try to teleport them to safety, but she stopped when a jumper block went up all around them.

“Peace, Sentinels,” said a voice from the darkness in front of them. “We have no quarrel with you. We only wish to talk.”

“Ana,” whispered Take, “make a light.”

Anaba raised her hands slowly and spoke into the darkness. “I am going to cast a light spell. It has no offensive potential.”

“Proceed,” said the voice.

Ana mumbled under her breath. Immediately, a soft white light illuminated their surroundings. The vampires were arranged around them in carefully regimented concentric circles, layered deeply into the darkness beyond her light and encircling them completely. Before them, watching them with an unreadable expression, stood a single dark-skinned Nightwalker about six feet tall, with braided black hair hanging to her waist. She wore a formal black cape over her deep sapphire evening gown. “Takeshi Nakamura, called the Wind of Earth.” When she spoke, it became clear it was she who had addressed them from the darkness.

Take looked at her. “Do I know you?”

“You do not, though I know you. I am Layla Magister Curallorn, called Nemesis, the Prince of Wrath.” She moved closer, examining him as if he were an insect under a microscope. “I have been tracking your movements since the day you first opened your eyes, hoping you would lead me to victory.”

“I don’t have a clue what you’re talking about,” said Take irritably. “It’s been a long night. If you’re not going to attack, stand aside and let us go.”

“You will not leave, Sentinel,” she said fiercely. “Not until you give us your news. Where is Jiao-long?”

Take tensed. “He got in my way, and now he’s dead. Are you going to get in my way, Nemesis?”

A psychic sigh spread through the crowd, but the vampires didn’t budge from their positions. Nemesis laughed at him. “You are the first Sentinel in more than a millennium to have slain one of the Firstborn, Takeshi Nakamura. Shadowhunter, I name you.” She dropped the veneer of civility, and her eyes glowed red. “For five hundred years, I have waited for a Sentinel strong enough to eliminate my greatest enemy. Jiao-long forced me to divide North America into two territories, one on each side of the Great River, but neither of us was satisfied. I have used various proxies to feed you and your predecessors intelligence on House Jiao-long for centuries, thinking one day you might annihilate my opponent for me.”

Takeshi stared at her, speechless.

She flashed her fangs in a wide grin. “Did you think your string of successes was due purely to your own devices?” she asked in amusement. “Your tactical skill has brought about the endgame much faster than I anticipated, but surely you realize there was a greater game at work. You are to be commended for playing your part so well, Shadowhunter. A lesser strategist would have surely failed me.”

Anaba’s eyes flashed. “You broke my wards to let Jiao-long’s scions capture Rory, didn’t you? And you weakened their psychic shields to allow me to follow them here.” Her knuckles showed white on her crystal staff. “I thought it was just a lucky break that led us to Jiao-long’s base, but it was a set-up. All of it.”

Take ground his teeth in frustration, remembering Antonio’s forced betrayal. She had made them all dance to her tune like the conductor of an orchestra. “Is that what you think this was? A game for your amusement?”

Nemesis gauged his outrage with amusement. “That is exactly what this was, mortal. And in any game, there comes a time to separate the players from the pawns. I am a player. Jiao-long was a player. You could have been a player, but you were not motivated enough to deal with Jiao-long.” She glanced behind Take to where Rory stood. “I merely arranged the proper incentive by allowing your lover to be taken.”

Take felt Anaba mask her fear with casual disinterest as the Nightwalkers took a single step forward, tightening the ring around them.

“Why does she think the two of you are sleeping together?”
Ana thought over the link.
“Did you guys hook up when I wasn’t looking?”

“No,”
Take and Rory thought simultaneously.

 Nemesis turned her head slightly to stare at the crater behind them. “And now, at the end of centuries of planning and manipulation, when all of my stratagems have finally come to fruition, it seems a greater power has taken an interest.” She refocused her attention on Take. “We felt the sunrise and the release of great magic. We were watching when you entered Jiao-long’s fortress, and we know it originated there.” Her voice deepened in fury. “Tell me what transpired. What has Jiao-long done to draw the attention of another plane?”

* * *

Rory stood mute, his mind frozen in terror as the road to his destiny yawned before him. Through the link, Take felt his fear but not the reason for it. The Sentinel subconsciously stepped to the side to cover Rory’s body with his own.

Seeing the movement, Nemesis turned her full senses on Rory. “What is this?” she demanded. “A Sentinel cannot be turned!”

Take raised his swords. “You can’t have him,” he said menacingly.

Nemesis scowled. “If he is the threat, then you will not keep us from him, Shadowhunter. Do you think a single triad can hold us all at bay, no matter how powerful?”

The Nightwalkers took another single step forward, closing the noose even tighter.

Rory felt the others readying themselves to fight, knowing that they had no chance, none at all. He pushed his fear to the back of his mind and placed his hand on Take’s shoulder. “It’s all right, Take.”

“I won’t let them take you,” growled Take without turning around.

“Takeshi,” Rory said, “this was the price.”

Take lowered his swords and whirled around in disbelief.

“I love you. Please forgive me someday,” Rory whispered. He kissed Take on the cheek and walked past him toward Nemesis. Stopping just a few feet away, he held his clenched fists straight out to the sides and opened his hands, allowing the glare of the cruciform brands on his palms to spill out into the darkness.

The Nightwalkers staggered from the power of the Pure Draw, their control breaking for the first time in the face of the holy light emanating from his hands. Nemesis held her ground, her brow creased in suspicion. “You are not what you were, Sentinel. How did Jiao-long make you a scion?”

“He didn’t,” said Rory. “He made me a vessel to travel the planes.”

Nemesis hissed.
“Pact Arcanum!”
The other Nightwalkers backed away in terror. “Jiao-long is a fool! How could he dare to bring such magic back into the world?”

“He paid the price for it,” Rory said.

“Not enough,” growled Nemesis, exposing her fangs. Her eyes blazed red. “The Court would have ordered his entire house
expunged
for this crime!” She glared at him. “Did you bargain on his behalf, Traveler?”

“No. I bargained on my own, with an agent of the Light.”

“And what power did you receive?”

“The power to call the soul back to the physical body and fill it with the White Wind.” Noticing Nemesis’s eyes widen, he plunged ahead. “If the soul is welcomed back, the White Wind will displace the Red.”

“This cannot be,” Nemesis said softly, her emotions clearly in turmoil. “Our damnation is eternal. We are lost forever. The Creator could not possibly seek to reclaim us now.”

“Yes,” Rory said quietly. “I think maybe He could.”

“You would offer us redemption, Traveler?” Nemesis drew herself up to her full height. “I am too old to believe in miracles.” For an instant, she regarded him hungrily before she reasserted her facade of arrogance.

“You underestimate yourself, Nemesis,” Rory said softly. “What price would you pay to step into the sunrise again without fear?”