Sunrise(Pact Arcanum 2) (43 page)

“What do you mean?” asked Scott.

Lorcan snorted in contempt. “At every crossroads of his life, Nick has relied on others for his salvation.” He glared at Rory. “He drew on your strength to defeat Luscian. He called on the higher powers to escape the fall of the Citadel. He provoked you into using the Grace to revive him after the duel. Now he has finally reached a crisis he cannot cheat his way out of, and he is lost in despair because he doesn’t know how to cope. You can’t save him. Only he can choose to make his own way back from the darkness into the light.”

“Then how do we convince him?” Rory asked.

“I’m sure you have your methods,” Lorcan said dismissively. “You don’t need my input.”

Rory leaned forward and laced his fingers together. “You are five hundred years old, Primogenitor Diluthical. You have more experience with the destructive side of your nature than all of the rest of us combined.”

“I don’t have a soul, Magister Jiao-long. Destruction is all I have.”

“You said you loved him,” said Scott. “Was that a lie, then?”

Lorcan chuckled. “Love is the most damaging emotion there is, Sentinel. That is true, no matter how creative it can be.”

“Help us, Lorcan.” Rory stood up from the table and walked around Scott to stand in front of the other Nightwalker. “Tell us what we need to do.”

Lorcan shook his head sadly before meeting Rory’s gaze. “You truly want my advice?”

“That’s why you’re here,” Rory said softly. “And that’s why you haven’t walked out that door yet, because you have something left to say.”

“Then my advice is this: human, Sentinel, or vampire, it doesn’t matter. In the end, we are all selfish. We surround ourselves with friends, family, and lovers for one purpose only: to keep the darkness at bay.” Lorcan took a deep breath. “If you want Nick to save himself, then you must force him to face that darkness and turn aside. Find out what he loves, and threaten to take it away. You may provide him with just enough incentive to fight for it.”

CHAPTER 57

August 2039; Hollywood Hills, Los Angeles, California; Three weeks later

“Nicholas!” yelled Toby.

Nick started up off the couch and gazed blearily at his brother, trying to claw the sleep from his senses. “Toby? What are you doing here?”

“I came to see you, shithead!” Toby was practically spitting in anger. “You gave me a key, remember?” He looked pointedly at the pile of empty liquor bottles and sticky, unwashed glasses that were strewn on the coffee table and scattered across the floor. “How long has this been going on?”

“Christ, what’s your problem?”

“
My
problem?” screamed Toby. He dumped the contents of a cardboard box on the floor in front of Nick. “Why don’t we talk about your fucking problem instead?”

Nick regarded the lighter and syringes Toby had spilled on the floor and the bag of white powder his brother still held.
Well, shit.
“Where do you get off, going through my stuff?”

“Where do
I
get off? Are you kidding me? I find a bag of drugs in your house, and that’s all you have to say?” Toby shook the bag of powder at Nick. “What is this? Coke?”

Nick snorted, settling back into the couch and crossing his arms. “Of course not. Cocaine is for dilettantes. That’s heroin.”

Toby gaped at him, appalled. “You’re
joking
about it?” He scowled. “Well, how’s this for a joke?” He ripped the bag open and poured the drug out on the floor. Then he kicked the pile of powder, spreading it haphazardly across the carpet. He turned angrily back to Nick. “What do you think of that?”

Nick shrugged. “I think I need to go shopping again—and you owe me ten thousand dollars.”

“This is why you changed, isn’t it? You never call, you disappear for days or weeks at a time, and the gossip rags keep publishing pictures of you walking around smashed in public. You’re just following your habit like any other fucking
junkie
!”

Nick laughed. “Smile when you say that.”

Toby stood with his mouth open in shock. Then he snapped his jaw shut and marched to the front door. “You can go straight to hell, Nicholas.”

“Don’t bother locking up,” Nick called after him. “I’m going to have to go out in a minute to pick up some new snacks.”

Toby slammed the door behind him.

“You wouldn’t understand,” Nick said into the silence. He sat morosely on the couch, staring at the spilled powder on the floor. “No one understands.” Then he drew the heroin off the floor with telekinesis and let it fall into an empty wineglass on the coffee table. Gathering up the syringes and the rest of the drug paraphernalia, he placed them on the table next to the narcotic. Then he calmly stripped the wrapping away from one of the syringes and affixed a needle to the end.

* * *

Toby stood with his head against Nick’s front door for an entire minute, waiting to see if his brother would come after him. Finally, he sighed and walked down the front steps, reaching into his pocket for his sat-phone. He dialed Scott’s number and waited for the Journeyman to pick up. “You were right, Scott. The stash was exactly where you said it would be hidden.” He listened to Scott’s question. “No, it’s worse. It was heroin. Yeah, I know. I’ll see you when I get there.”

* * *

Scott hung up and turned to the others in the living room of the Los Angeles hotel suite they had booked for the night. “He graduated to heroin.”

“Shit.” Rory slumped in his seat.

Lorcan’s eyes were hard. “He won’t give it up willingly.”

“Then we need a better plan,” said Ana. “We can’t let this go on.”

“He’s ready to sacrifice anything for the sake of his habit, guys,” said Scott.

“Maybe,” Takeshi said as he wearily got to his feet. “But ‘anything’ isn’t the same as ‘anyone’.”

Ana stood as well. “It will be ugly, Take. Are you sure you want to do this?”

“It has to be done if we want to put this behind us,” Take said, bitterly.

“Then we have to follow the plan and work together,” said Lorcan, understanding the subtext perfectly. “We have maybe an hour or two before Toby makes it back here; that’s our window of opportunity. We have a script to follow, so let’s get moving.”

* * *

Nick was floating, alone in the darkness, reveling in the perfect stillness. Then the euphoric high evaporated and he crashed back to earth. Snapping his eyes open, he found himself sitting on his couch, one end of Ana’s staff resting on his left shoulder. Then he looked into her eyes and realized that it wasn’t Anaba he was facing.

Fire drew back the heel of her staff and rested it on the ground. Air and Water regarded him from either side of her, and Earth stood behind them, his arms crossed.

“Nicholas Magister Luscian,” said Earth, “we wish to speak to you rationally, so we hope you understand why we have scrubbed the poison from your mind.”

Nick regarded the Four Winds with a sour expression. “Whatever. There’s more where that came from.”

“Is this the road you wish to walk, brother?” asked Water.

“Is there truly nothing left in your life worth saving?” asked Air.

Nick glared at them defiantly. “No, nothing. You’re wasting your time. Now get out.”

“If friendship means so little to you, what about family?” asked Fire.

“You allowed your brother to see what you have become, Nicholas,” Air berated him. “You stripped away a portion of his innocence. For what?”

Nick swallowed. “Toby’s a big boy. He can handle a little truth about the real world.”

The Four Winds smiled at him, wearing identical expressions of triumph, and Nick realized he had walked into a trap. Fire lifted her staff and the air rippled between them, roiling with colors that stabilized into the image of a nondescript hotel room. Toby was sitting at a table with Lorcan seated across from him.

“So, Lorcan,” asked Toby, “Nick has told me a lot about Rory—how the two of them became friends—but he never mentioned you.” He sighed. “Not that he’s been a paragon of honesty lately, but how do you fit into all of this? Do you work with the band?”

Lorcan sipped at his glass of Tiamat. “We met when Nick was on tour a few years ago in Europe, and then we ran into each other again while we were working.” Lorcan shrugged. “We’ve been sleeping together for over a year.”

Toby spat his liquor on the table in shock, coughing.

“What the hell is he doing?” screamed Nick.

“Telling your family the truth,” said Earth. “You said he could handle it.”

“Wow,” Toby said, once he could talk again, still onscreen. “I knew Nick had some experience with the other team, but I never met anyone he was, um, attached to.”

“There’s a lot you haven’t heard about Nick,” suggested Lorcan. “How much do you want to know?”

Toby scowled. “I want to know what was so terrible that he would throw away his entire career and flush his life down the toilet for the sake of the needle. Can you tell me that?”

“Yes,” Lorcan said softly. “Yes, I can.”

Toby nodded impatiently and crossed his arms on the table. “Tell me everything.”

“NO!”
yelled Nick, leaping to his feet, fangs and talons extended.

Water calmly kicked the coffee table into his legs, causing the Daywalker to fall heavily over the table onto the floor.

The image dissolved into the air as Fire lowered her staff.

“Soon he will see your true face, Nicholas,” said Air. “What do you think he’ll say?”

“Damn you all!” yelled Nick, climbing to his feet. “Leave him alone! He doesn’t need to know!”

“Yes, he does,” said Water. “Or at least he will, after Lorcan drops his shields and exposes him to the Red Wind.”

Nick went perfectly still. “He’s latent?” he whispered.

Water nodded. “We tested him before he came to see you this afternoon, brother. By tomorrow, he will have opened his eyes to the real world, as it truly is. Will he thank you for the insight?”

Nick shivered and took two steps forward. Wrapping his hands in Scott’s shirt, he said in a broken voice, “Scotty, please don’t do this. Please! Don’t make him into a monster just to spite me. I’m not worth it.”

Air’s expression turned brutally cold. “Beg us.”

Nick blinked. “What?”

“Get on your knees and beg us for your brother’s innocence,” Earth said.

“Prove to us that his life has value to you, and we will spare it,” said Fire.

Slowly, carefully, Nick lowered himself to his knees and clasped his hands before him. “Please. I’ll do anything you ask, just let him go. He doesn’t deserve to be forced into being like us.” His heart pounded wildly as he searched the Winds’ faces for an answer.

Water knelt before him, so that their eyes met. “You lied, brother.”

Nick stared at him. “What?”

Air smiled kindly. “You said there was nothing in your life worth saving.”

Fire raised her staff again, and the window reformed, showing Lorcan and Toby sitting at the table, talking. Lorcan stood when he heard the sound of a key turning in the lock and then snapped his fingers. The image of Toby flashed white and shattered into opalescent fragments, which evaporated as they fell to the floor. Then the door opened and the real Toby walked into the hotel room. He peered around at the otherwise empty suite and frowned. “Where did the others go?”

“They went to get Nick,” Lorcan told him. “We decided you were right. We need to do something. Are you up for an intervention?”

Toby’s eyes lit up and he grinned. “Damn right.”

The screen faded again as Air leaned forward through the space where the image had been. “The simulacrum was only to make a point, but who can say whether he will be safe without you to shield him?”

“We have respected your wishes and not tested him for latency, but he remains at risk,” said Earth. “As does your sister. Will you honor your promise?”

From where he knelt, Nick turned his gaze to each of them in turn. “What promise?”

“You said you would do anything we asked, brother.” Water stood again. “We ask only that you stop destroying yourself and live again; if not for your own sake, then for theirs. Who will protect them from the darkness, if not you?”

“I can’t.” Nick’s voice shook. “I’m not strong enough.”

Air came forward, and his expression changed as he withdrew from the Wind link, leaving only Rory. “Then we’ll do it together, Nicholas. I’ll be beside you every step of the way. All you have to do is ask.”

Nick shivered. “I don’t know if I can.”

Rory extended his uncovered right hand, illuminating the room with the light of the cross brand in his palm. “Try.”

Nick lifted his eyes to meet the Redeemer’s for a long moment. Then, hesitantly, he reached out and took the proffered hand.

FALL TO EARTH

CHAPTER 58

August 2039; Court of Shadows Council Chamber Complex, Alexandria, Egypt; The next week

“So it was a failed assassination attempt.” Aleksei frowned at Lorcan. “By whom?”