ONSET: Blood of the Innocent

by Glynn Stewart

  “Can you let her know that David White called?” he told the secretary. “It isn’t official business.”

  “Mr. White?” the young woman queried. “Please hold a moment.”

  The phone clicked over to cheap easy-listening music. Unless David missed his guess, Loring had instructed the secretary to always say she was busy, but had also provided a list of names that would be connected through.

  After about a minute, the music cut off.

  “David,” the hacker who’d saved his life greeted him. “I didn’t actually expect you to use this number, you know.”

  “Some of us actually like talking to people, Vanessa,” he pointed out. “White Majestic Security, huh?”

  “Some people get it. Most don’t. The ones who do are some of my best clients,” she said sweetly. “Some of them were on the wrong side of the old me and wanted to be sure no one else managed the same thing I had.”

  “It’s going well?”

  “Six staff, two admins, four coders, one of them a brownie,” she reeled off quickly. “We are now the preeminent computer security firm for supernatural and in-the-know businesses in the United States.”

  Loring chuckled.

  “It’s a list of two names, and the other one is a djinn programming out of a basement who uses illusions to fake an office when he needs it,” she admitted. “I figure Abdul will be working for me within a year; he really doesn’t like talking to people.”

  “You hired a brownie?” David asked.

  “I managed to sneak past your enchanted security,” she pointed out, “but it was the first I’d seen in years that stymied me. I’m good…but I’m limited to mortal gear and mortal tricks. So, I hired someone who wasn’t.”

  “So, you’re linked into the supernatural community now?”

  “The in-the-know community more so,” she admitted. “In many ways, it’s smaller than the actual supernatural community, but it seems to be a necessary interface. And a lucrative one.”

  “Good. I…need a favor,” he told her.

  “I figured. I charge for those, you know.”

  “I can afford it.”

  ONSET Commanders were very well compensated.

  “You probably could,” she agreed. “But we both know I’m not going to charge you. What do you need?”

  “Information. The supernatural and in-the-know community might be the only place to find it, but I’m looking for data on someone who’s slipped entirely under Omicron’s radar: a vampire known as the Arbiter.”

  Loring whistled softly.

  “Slipping under Omicron’s radar is not easy, David,” she pointed out. “I’ve received at least four offers for a lot of money if I could work out a way to sneak around your Echelon systems.”

  “Let’s…both realize I have no idea what you mean,” David confessed, and the hacker laughed at him.

  “Fair. Let’s just say I fundamentally disagree with its existence but I understand why you guys use it,” she replied. “Completely under your radar, huh?”

  “I suspect at least partially because he has no interest in fighting us,” he said. “But I need to know what he is, who he is, and what the hell he’s been up to.”

  “A challenge. I like those; they’re more common on this side of the fence than I thought but still not common enough to keep me happy,” Loring said. “I’ll take a look, David. Usual email? You’ll forgive me if I don’t call you.”

  “That’ll be fine, Vanessa. Thank you.”

  DAVID HAD most of his civilian clothes spread across his bed and was debating what to do with Memoria when Mason breezed into his apartment, knocking twice but barely slowing down before opening the door and coming in.

  “Are you ready to go?” she asked. “I’ve got one of the cars standing by, and our flight to Vegas is in a few hours.”

  “Already all arranged, huh?” he replied, shaking his head. “I wasn’t expecting to go anywhere; my stuff is in some disarray.”

  Mason glanced over the clothes on the bed, located his suitcase, and then gestured. Power flared along her hands and wrapped itself around David’s possessions. They took to the air, neatly folding themselves as they flew into the suitcase.

  In ten seconds, his suitcase was fully packed, more organized than it ever was when David packed it himself.

  “Remember, we’re traveling civilian,” she told him. “Do you have a travel case for your gun?”

  Technically, their badges should allow them to carry anything they wanted as carry-on. In practice, doing so would draw far more attention to them than Omicron preferred, so they were encouraged to check weapons—especially weapons that would draw attention all on their own.

  Like Memoria.

  “I have one for my gun, yes,” he confirmed, gesturing to where it sat on the bedside table. “Already locked up.”

  “Good.” With another airy gesture, the black box with the heavy caseless pistol and its ammunition blocks landed in his case, the clothes rearranging themselves to cover it.

  “Still not sure what to do with the sword,” David admitted. Enough people had died to create Memoria that he didn’t like to let it out of his sight.

  “You can’t carry it on and nobody is going to be comfortable with you checking it, including you,” she told him. “Goddess knows I wouldn’t leave it anywhere, but locking it up here is probably the best plan.”

  David considered it for a long moment, then sighed.

  “As usual, you’re right. I just don’t like letting it out of my sight.”

  There was a heavy steel safe in his closet, magically and physically attached to the building’s concrete frame. It already held the core components of his augmented reality wargear and his M4 Omicron carbine, and the harness hung up inside had a clip for Memoria’s scabbard.

  “All right. Let’s go.”

  THE FLIGHT WAS SURPRISINGLY NORMAL. It had been over six months since David had taken anything resembling civilian transport, most of his travel being via Pendragon on his way to one crisis or another. The crowded mundane urgency of the airport was almost soothing, though he doubted most of his fellow travelers would have understood the joke.

  Most of them were distracted by Mason, anyway. She’d decided to glory in being out of uniform, with a long but surprisingly tight flower-print skirt and a similarly theoretically conservative high-necked sleeveless blouse that clung to her athletic frame.

  David only barely managed to not be distracted by his companion, and he was used to her. He was relatively sure he saw at least one man walk into a wall, staring at her.

  Despite his weapons-grade feminine companion, they made it into McCarran Airport without incident and grabbed a taxi to the Strip.

  There, unfortunately, David was reminded of one of the downsides of having superhuman senses. Accessing the hotel check-in desk took them past the casino floor, where it seemed that everyone was smoking.

  David might not be in any danger from secondhand—or even firsthand—cigarette smoke, but his sense of smell was as enhanced as the rest of his senses. The smoke wafting out from the casino floor hit him with physical force until he could consciously dampen down his nose.

  While he was doing so, he basically followed Kate in a bit of a daze, missing her entire conversation with the check-in staff beyond his being asked for ID and a credit card.

  “You okay?” she asked after almost physically dragging him toward the elevators.

  “Yeah, just had to dial back,” he whispered. “You know what my senses are like and…” He trailed off, waving at the smoke drifting around them.

  “Fair,” she allowed. “Didn’t think of that. You can handle it?”

  “Yeah. Just takes some conscious effort not to be able to tell you which brand of cigarette the dude at the seventh machine over, two rows back, is smoking,” he told her, half-forcing a smile. “Sorry, did you get the room sorted?”

  “Rooms,” she emphasized. “Unless I got the completely wrong impression about this
trip,” she added with a lascivious wink.

  He laughed, realizing that part of his mind had been thinking just that—and knowing just how bad of an idea anything of the sort would be.

  “No, sorry,” he admitted. “Just struggling with brain fog.”

  “Good,” Mason said, her eyes flickering aside in an unreadable moment. Normally, David’s Sight would have given him a clue as to what she was thinking, but Mason—like most Mages—had long before learned to shield her emotions.

  “Here’s your room key. I suggest we go shower off the flight and change into something more suitable for Vegas heat. Then let’s hit the Strip and see the sights!”

  11

  Vegas was its own unique thing.

  David had never been before, and the buffeting crowds as they made their way down the Strip, past gaudy hotels and a replica Eiffel Tower and brilliantly colored fake castles were an uncomfortable experience for him. He’d spent too long on duty, he realized, and he spent the entire walk, intended to get them out for air and to see the area, watching for threats.

  “You can breathe, you know,” Mason pointed out as they dodged out of the crowds into a Starbucks. “No one is going to swarm out of the crowd, guns blazing.”

  David turned a level gaze on her, noting that despite the light fabric of her skirt and tank top, the other ONSET Commander wore a short-sleeved blue jacket.

  “And you don’t have a gun under that jacket, do you?” he asked.

  “Guilty,” she admitted, flipping the loosely tied garment slightly further open to show the grip of a small revolver before tightening it again to cover the weapon. “Some paranoia is allowed, David, but you don’t have to watch everyone. Let’s go…I don’t know, we’re in Vegas. Let’s go hit the slots.”

  “You know I can’t,” David pointed out. “It’s not like I can turn it off, Kate, and we’re not allowed to be obviously supernatural.”

  “It” in this case was his ability to see the future. For something as fixed as the “random” result of the next pull of a slot machine, he could know what it was well into the future. Certainly far enough to know whether or not to use a given slot machine.

  He hadn’t played cards much since his Mantle had fully taken hold, but he’d played enough to know that unless the deck was being continually reshuffled, blackjack was easy. His ability to read auras and emotions made poker a joke.

  “You could lose intentionally,” Mason suggested, but she was nodding as she said it. “Fine, let me grab some iced coffees and we can continue the walk. There’s plenty to look at, if nothing else!”

  That was true, at least, and David mostly managed to relax as they walked. He spotted signs and identifiers he never would have before as they went, though, picking out the one club owned by the Elfin and several advertisements for shops just off the Strip that, if he read between the lines correctly, concealed spaces intended for the supernatural tourists.

  There wasn’t much, though, which wasn’t a surprise. The best estimate he’d seen was that there were roughly eighty thousand supernaturals in the United States, with about half again that number in humans who knew at least most of the truth. Even with tourism, there were unlikely to be more than a thousand or so of those people in Las Vegas at any given point in time.

  “Let’s get off the street,” Mason finally said, something clearly bothering her. “The Elfin had a club, right? That should have a private space we can just…be.”

  THE NEATLY DRESSED MAÎTRE D’ at the club wore a silver oak leaf on his lapel and bowed slightly as they approached.

  “How may I assist you, miss, sir?” he asked.

  “We’re looking for the Tolkien room,” Mason told him.

  The man looked past her, making sure they were clear, then met her gaze and cleared his throat.

  “You have no idea what the sign is, do you, Commander?” he asked.

  “Nope,” Mason agreed cheerfully. “But you recognized us the moment we walked in.”

  “Commander White has some renown,” the Elfin maître d’ replied calmly, gesturing at David. “For both of your information, you were closer than you thought. At one of our facilities, you should always ask for Rivendell.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind,” Mason promised. “So, sir, may we see Rivendell?”

  “I’ll have one of my people show you the way.”

  ANOTHER SUITED young man with a silver oak leaf pin materialized at a gesture, leading them through the club to what David suspected most of the patrons assumed was merely a decorative accent, a rip-off from the Lord of the Rings movies: a painting of the door into Moria, with its Sindarin runes spelling out SPEAK FRIEND, AND ENTER.

  At a murmured phrase from their escort, the door shone with magic that mundane eyes couldn’t see, and the young man simply stepped through the wall.

  Familiar by now with the drama and jokes that went hand in hand with the Elfin, David and Mason followed him, stepping through the seemingly solid wall and passing into another lounge area, little different from the one outside.

  “Welcome to Rivendell, Las Vegas, Commander White, Commander Mason,” the young man told them with a bow. “I am instructed to inform you that Lord Riley has established a tab here to cover any reasonable costs. The Elfin recognize the debt we owe Commander White, in particular, and a few free drinks are hardly a payment on it.”

  “Thank you,” David told him. “Are there any rules we should be aware of?”

  “You’ll note there are no slot machines or anything like that back here,” the young Elfin said carefully. “There are poker tables, but the House does not become involved in gambling here except as referee. You gamble at your own risk, but note that the tables are enchanted to prevent aura-reading and prescience.”

  “Sensible,” David murmured. “Thank you.”

  “Let’s grab those drinks,” Mason told him, leading the way toward a quiet corner table. “Here, at least, we can talk honestly.” She shook her head. “I forgot just how much trying to dance around work affairs wore on me.”

  “I thought your religion gave you some scope for that,” he said. The silver pentacle the Mage always wore was on a long-enough chain that it was currently hiding inside her shirt, but he was aware of her Wiccan faith…even if he freely admitted he had roughly zero clue what any of it meant.

  “Some,” she agreed. “Not much. There’s a vast gulf between wearing crystals that should bring me wealth and luck and, well, flinging fireballs at vampires.” The blonde shook her head. “Hell, I can weave spells to shatter stone and build bridges, and even I’m not sure if the crystal stuff is bunk or not.”

  A waiter came by and took their drink orders, and Mason slumped back into her seat, suddenly morose.

  David studied her for several seconds, noting the degree of shielding locked into her aura, and sighed.

  “What didn’t you tell me before?” he asked gently. “You didn’t drag me to Las Vegas just to get my mind off things, did you?”

  “I was kind of hoping it would work a bit better for me, too,” she admitted. “You aren’t getting the updates on Golden Twilight, so I…didn’t mention some stuff. You’re not really cleared right now.”

  “I know,” David said. “But it’s eating you up.”

  Mason sighed.

  “Romanov hit us the second night,” she confessed. “Hard. Like…led by Tatiana Romanov’s son, the last scion of the Romanov core family, hard.”

  “How bad?” David asked.

  “Grigori was less dangerous than his mother, but more than bad enough when backed by half a dozen of the Familias’s less…central Elders. And fucking tanks.”

  “Tanks?”

  “Somebody in the Nevada National Guard is going to be having some extremely unpleasant discussions with OSPI investigators,” Mason confirmed. “They had a tank platoon. Four of the damn things. Unfortunately for them, we still had Pendragons and two battle Mages.”

  She shook her head.

  “It was late en
ough and things were over fast enough that we don’t have too much to cover up with civilians, but damn. They went all out.”

  “Your team?”

  “Samuels and Tsimote were both hit badly, but everybody lived. They and several of Klein’s people were medevacked… we were lucky and better prepared than the Romanovs expected, and we suspect that may have been basically everything they had left.”

  “You weren’t on leave to avoid burnout,” he noted.

  “No. My team is on leave because half of my people were in the Campus hospital for over a day and are on strict bed rest.” She chuckled. “My being somewhere else is probably good for their recovery. No need to try and look good for the boss when the boss isn’t there.”

  “It sucks,” David agreed, laying his hand on hers and squeezing. “Losing Pell was…bad. Took a while to sink in, given how busy the aftermath was, but it was bad.”

  Pell had been his first pilot, killed in another attack by Romanov vampires.

  “The good news is that we may well have broken the Familias Romanov forever,” Mason replied. “The bad news is that Petrov Romanov is still alive…and, so far as we know, breaking the Romanovs will only allow Dresden to secure control.”

  “If the Romanovs are done, then the vampire civil war may be over,” he agreed. “Toss-up whether that’s a good thing for us or not.”

  The Familias Dresden had been the source of much of Omicron’s intelligence on the Familias Romanov, one side of the vampire civil war intentionally pointing Omicron at their enemy. Even knowing they were being used, the Omicron Branch couldn’t not execute on the intelligence they’d been given.

  “Vampires killing each other was handy,” Mason replied. “But too many people were getting caught in the crossfire, and we were being distracted from the demons. It’s a damn mess, David, and I’ll be glad to get back to killing things that wander through from next door without taking over innocent bodies.”