ONSET: Blood of the Innocent

by Glynn Stewart

  “I hear you.”

  12

  They returned to their own hotel for dinner and were looking over potential shows to see in the evening when David’s phone chimed with a new email.

  From Loring, it had a four-word subject line:

  Fuck it. Call me.

  Somehow, David wasn’t surprised the body of the email was blank.

  “I’ll call her from my room,” he told Kate. “I’ll swing by yours when I’m done?”

  “All right,” she replied. “I’ll pick a concert for us and be dressed in a bit. Find some nice clothes while you’re at it; I know I packed some you’d laid out!”

  He chuckled.

  “All right, boss. I’ll see what I can do.”

  The elevators delivered him back to his room and he dialed the number Loring gave him.

  This time, she answered herself.

  “Every time I think I’ve learned everything there is to know about what’s behind the damn curtain, another fucking surprise pops up,” she snapped before he even said a word. “Do you even have a clue how irritating you are to a professional knowledge sponge?”

  “Um. No?” he admitted.

  “Shocking,” she said dryly. “What do you know about the Delphic Oracle?”

  “Um. Greek myth, everyone asked her questions, generally phrased her answers such that she could adjust the meaning after the fact?” he reeled off.

  “Give or take a few tons of salt, yeah, about that,” Loring agreed. “Enough was dug up around her temple and so forth that even now, I wonder if there was really anything supernatural going on…but I wouldn’t bet it against it.

  “Well, there’s a guy—or a girl, it’s not like they generally deal in genders instead of cute emoticons online—who calls themselves the Tahoe Oracle. Why, I’m not sure, because I guaran-fucking-tee you that if they actually lived anywhere near Lake Tahoe, someone would have dug them out of their hole by now.

  “That said, they were only a vague rumor in my old life, but these days, the in-the-know community knows a bit more,” Loring continued. “There’s an email address; it’s relatively common knowledge. You ping it, you tell the Tahoe Oracle who you are and where they can find you.

  “They send you a price, you pay it in bitcoin.”

  “Then they answer your question,” David presumed.

  “Fuck, no,” Loring said bluntly. “That price, seven figures or so at minimum from rumor, is just to be able to ask your question. They find you, usually when you least expect it, you ask your question.

  “They quote you another number. I’ve heard as low as six figures and as high as nine for that one. You pay that, cash or similarly untraceable currency, at a later date you arrange. They answer your question—in detail.

  “They won’t predict the future, but if you’ll pay their price, they’ll tell you anything you want to know about the present or the past,” she concluded. “And if you tell anyone anything about the Oracle themselves before you pay them, you don’t get your answer. If you tell anyone afterwards, they won’t talk to you again…and rumor, again, has it they’ve ruined more than a few people who’ve talked too much.”

  “You’re saying this person may know who the Arbiter is?” David asked.

  “If anyone does, the Oracle does,” Loring agreed. “So, I reached out. Told them who I was, who I was asking for, and where I could be found.

  “Got a note back in under ten minutes, telling me they’d find you. That was it. No price. No asking where you were. Just…‘the Commander will hear from the Oracle.’

  “I don’t think they’re charging you for the meeting, David, which means you may not want to know what they’re going to ask for the information.”

  “This isn’t exactly official business, Vanessa,” he warned her. “What if I can’t make their bill?”

  “I don’t know,” she admitted. “But I don’t get the impression that wasting the Oracle’s time is…healthy.”

  “Wonderful. Thank you, Vanessa,” David told her. “If nothing else, it sounds like this person might be our only chance of finding this guy.”

  “Good luck,” she said. “And…fuck. I want to ask you to tell me everything, but that’s against the rules of this shit. I love this world I found, David, but fucked if I don’t hate the whole mystical bullshit sometimes!”

  MASON LOOKED at him like he was crazy.

  “She said the Tahoe Oracle?” she asked.

  “That was the name she gave, yeah. Sounded like a big deal, if what she was saying was true,” David explained.

  “I’ve heard of the Tahoe Oracle,” Mason told him. “It’s a…joke, an urban legend among the supernatural community, not someone real. Someone’s fed Loring a crock of shit.”

  “Do you really believe that Majestic bought someone’s crock of shit?” he asked. “This is the woman who managed to get into our systems, after all.”

  “Fair,” the Mage allowed, letting the conversation die to silence as they exited the elevator, heading toward their cab. “But still,” she murmured after a few moments, “even I find the idea of a functioning Oracle laughable, and I can conjure beings of pure energy to do my chores.”

  “I think we who live what others call superstition are perhaps a little to quick to dismiss what falls into that category but outside our own experience,” David told her as they flagged a cab. “Which show were we going to, again?”

  “It’s a surprise,” Mason replied, giving the driver the hotel.

  Sitting in the back seat of the taxi, they let the driver babble at them about the show his brother was arranging at one of the hotels. There wasn’t enough privacy for them to talk about anything related to work or the non-mundane.

  Arriving at the hotel, it appeared that David was being taken to one of the many Cirque du Soleil shows. There were definitely worse fates in life, so he followed Mason willingly enough into the hotel.

  Halfway across the casino floor, however, a neatly dressed man in a conservative suit fell into step with them, letting David’s questioning glare slough off him like water off a duck.

  “I speak for the Oracle,” the man said calmly, his voice pitched just loudly enough that both David and Mason could hear him. “Your deeds, David White, have earned a free question—but not a free answer.

  “Speak, that we may know what knowledge you seek.”

  David half-stumbled in shock, recovering quickly enough to catch Mason, who did stumble.

  The stranger continued to smile calmly and keep step with them, and David’s Sight revealed “his” true nature—the man was a construct, an assembly of energy and power conjured by a Mage or other powerful being…but a far more detailed one than he had ever encountered before.

  “The vampire known as the Arbiter,” he finally said as they neared the door to the concert hall and slowed, delaying joining the line to see what their new companion said. “I want to know who he is, where he came from and where he lairs.”

  “Ah,” the stranger said in a hissing, almost serpentine exhale. “We suspected it might be him. A dangerous foe you seek, Commander…or perhaps an even more dangerous ally.”

  “Can you provide that information?” David asked. He didn’t need the strange construct—or whatever the hell was behind it—judging his choices.

  “We can.” The construct produced a plain white card, which it passed to David. “The email address on the card will work once. Send us a location and a time, at least twenty-four hours from now. Meet us there with ten million dollars, cash or equivalents.”

  David choked.

  “Ten million dollars isn’t easily transported,” he pointed out. “What kind of equivalent are you talking?”

  “This is Las Vegas, Commander White. Half of these casinos have hundred-thousand-dollar chips. I’m certain a man of your…talents will have a way to acquire them.

  “We have ways to acquire your information. Email us when you have the money.”

  With that, the stranger calmly tu
rned and walked away, leaving David and Mason staring after him in shock until he disappeared into the crowd.

  “An urban legend, huh?” David asked softly.

  “Just what have you found, David?” Mason asked.

  “I have no idea,” he replied. “Nor do I have a clue how I’m raising ten million dollars in twenty-four hours without breaking my contract with ONSET.”

  “You have the whole show to think about it,” she told him. “Let’s not get distracted right away!”

  THE SHOW, while spectacular, didn’t provide David with an answer to the question of the moment. He and Mason both stewed over it until they got back to their hotel, at which point she walked into his hotel room with him and grabbed the chair at the desk, leaving him to either stand or sit on the bed.

  He chose to stand, walking past her to look out over the Las Vegas skyline.

  “I’m not seeing a lot of options,” he admitted. “I can call it in, see if we can get the funds from Command. I’m not sure even ONSET’s resources stretch to ten million of petty cash, however.”

  “And you’re not on this case,” Mason pointed out quietly. “We can bump it up the chain, but neither of us is supposed to be involved in this at all. This kind of intelligence coup is…rare enough you’d probably get the money, but…”

  “Not quickly,” David replied.

  “Yeah. And while he didn’t put an end time on his timeline, I can’t imagine the offer’s open forever.”

  “Or that the Arbiter won’t learn people were asking about him,” he said. “While I imagine he was expecting it, he strikes me as the type to protect his secrets. Thoroughly, if not necessarily violently.”

  “That’s rapidly leaving us with only one option,” Mason concluded. “And I’ll admit, that option kind of sounds like fun.”

  “It also sounds like something that’s going to screw me in front of the board of inquiry,” he replied. “I can’t imagine it’s going to help my case if they find out I went and broke my contracts and oaths by abusing my powers to gamble.”

  “David, are we really going to do anything with this intel except turn it right back over to ONSET?” Mason asked. “We’re just expediting affairs and making sure the deal is closed.”

  He shook his head.

  “I can just see that going on my tombstone.”

  “Come on, David,” she said with a bright grin. “Sleep on it, but you know I’m right—and you know it’ll be fun.”

  13

  Having conceded Kate Mason’s point, at least in his own head, David dressed carefully the following morning. Professional clothes made him look less like someone who’d be trying to cheat the casino, at least in his own head, and he left the gun behind.

  His FBI Division O credentials, always a useful fiction, went into the inside pocket of a light linen blazer. In the worst case, he suspected “I’m a Federal Agent” would work as a decent “get out of jail free” card.

  Finally, he stepped outside and knocked on Mason’s door. The rooms she’d booked were right next door to each other.

  When she answered the door, he saw that she’d clearly been thinking along the same lines as he had…plus a certain degree of weaponized sexuality as a distraction. The tall blonde had produced a skintight sheath dress in a stunning turquoise that left little of her frame to the imagination despite covering her from halfway up her neck down to her ankles.

  He exhaled sharply in surprise. He’d seen Kate Mason weaponize before, but never to quite this scale.

  “Wow.”

  “You clean up nicely yourself,” she told him with a wicked smile, stepping back into her room and gesturing him in so they could speak in private. “I take it we’re on the same page?”

  “We’re in Las Vegas,” David replied. “It seems…unpopular not to gamble.”

  “We certainly aren’t paying the Oracle’s price from our resources,” she said. ONSET Commanders made good money, but not enough for the pair of them to even have a million dollars to hand, let alone ten.

  “Exactly. So, let’s go see what Vegas has to offer, shall we?”

  “Do we have a plan?” Mason asked.

  “Slots to build up a base, then either roulette or high-stakes blackjack,” he told her.

  “Some of the slot machines could cover the price in one win,” she pointed out. “Wouldn’t that be easier and draw somewhat less suspicion?”

  “First,” he held up a finger, “that would require us to find a slot machine that will win on its next pull. I can’t change the odds, Kate; I just know what the next result is.

  “Second, a big slot win is a big deal. Lots of attention. Big vanity checks. IRS agents and paperwork right away…and perhaps most importantly right now, they don’t pay out in casino chips.”

  “And if we run the cash through our own accounts, that’s asking for trouble,” she agreed. “So, what do you plan?”

  “Honestly, if I thought we’d get the cash fast enough, a big slot win would be easiest, but I’m betting that takes days to process,” David replied. “I could deal with taxes and headaches, if nothing else; once we turn the data over, I’m pretty sure I can get Omicron to talk to the IRS for me.

  “But I’m guessing we need to pay the Oracle by tomorrow,” he concluded. “So, like I said, slots to start, build up a base of funds, then cash those in as chips and see where we go.”

  “I’m with you,” Mason promised. “I’ll see about keeping everyone around you distracted.”

  “That, Commander Mason, you are going to do without even trying.”

  FIVE HUNDRED DOLLARS from the cash machine wouldn’t take most people very far in the slot machines at a Vegas casino.

  David White was not most people.

  His prescience ran about a third of a second into the future in combat, but combat was the one of the most chaotic environments possible, with people adjusting and changing their minds from moment to moment.

  Things that were more predictable, he could see further. A slot machine ran on a random seed, a computer algorithm that produced a new number each time…but the seed was already set, and the number it produced would always be the same.

  Stopping at the first machine, David focused on the idea of putting money in the machine and pulling the lever, stretching his Sight in a way that was…profoundly uncomfortable.

  He managed to get an image of the symbols that would appear on the screen. He’d lose…but he needed to test it. The first set of bills went into the machine and he pulled the lever.

  The screen lit up, “spun” its symbols…and spat out the exact combination he’d been expecting. He exhaled in relief, hoping anyone around him thought it was disappointment. It seemed this might just work.

  With Kate Mason leaning against the machine next to him, watching, he repeated the stretch into the future. The next spin on this machine would be a small prize, fifty dollars.

  He paid and spun. The machine chimed cheerfully and spat out a paper slip, instructing him to take it to the cashier to claim his prize.

  “Yes!” he exclaimed, looking up at Mason, who grinned widely back at him.

  “Good start to the day,” she told him.

  “Let’s see if the luck holds,” he replied, mostly for the benefit of those around him. “Let’s try some more machines.”

  They wandered down the line of slot machines, with David touching each one in passing, doing his best to make it look like a ritual superstition. He intentionally lost on the next two machines, but the fourth machine he picked for its imminent seven-hundred-dollar payout.

  Another paper chit. He passed them back to Kate who, in a gesture that probably distracted everyone in a ten-foot radius, folded them up and slid them into her bra from the side of her sleeveless dress.

  “I’ll keep them safe for you,” she promised with a wink.

  Shaking his head, David intentionally picked the next machine at random, pretending to be distracted by Kate, and lost. He’d started with enough for a hund
red plays on the machines, and he needed to lose often enough for it to look like a statistical fluke that he was successful—while also keeping the wins under the threshold that would bring staff out to check on the machine.

  One of the machines they passed was about to spit out a six-million-dollar jackpot, a temptation that held David in place for several moments before ruling it out and moving on, accepting three one-thousand-dollar wins on the next few machines as a scheme settled into his mind.

  “Kate,” he murmured to his companion as he passed her the chits. “Sixth machine back, the green one, see it?”

  “Yeah?” she replied questioningly.

  “It’s about to spit out a jackpot and gather everyone’s attention. I need someone to pull it in a few minutes. Can you manage something?”

  “I can’t manage mind control,” she pointed out under her breath. “What were you thinking?”

  “I don’t know; suggest that it looks lucky to one of the regular gamblers? Try the voice-of-God trick.”

  That got a chuckle from her.

  “That might work,” she admitted, “if we don’t send someone to the insane asylum by accident. Looking for a distraction?”

  “I’m going to go for a string of small wins and then try and cash in fifty thousand dollars of chits for casino chips,” he told her very quietly. “I want everyone looking somewhere else while I do it.”

  One of the gamblers, a tired-looking old woman who looked like she’d given up on, well, everything, suddenly looked up from her machine, confused. Her gaze settled on the machine that David had indicated and confusion switched for thoughtfulness.

  She walked over to it, plugged in her five dollars, and pulled the lever.

  The massive light display above the slot machines went crazy, noise and lights drawing attention to the woman as her exhausted smile gave way to the biggest grin David had ever seen on anyone in his life.

  A crowd rapidly gathered around, congratulating her as a casino technician came out to check on the machine.