As he looked toward the road, he could see the burnt-out hulks of the armored vehicles the Familias had brought to try and retake the facility from Omicron. There were few visible bodies now, and most of the ones he could see had been burnt to a crisp.
The best part of a thousand vampires, beings that could easily have been immortal, had died there. Some of those beings had witnessed the birth of the nation whose officers had destroyed them. There was no question in battle, no regret then, but the thought of the knowledge and memories that had died there struck David like a blow as he looked out over the slope.
“Congratulations, Commander White,” Major Warner told him, the redheaded Mage seeming to appear from nowhere. “You now join Commander O’Brien in a very select, very short list.”
“Which is that?” David asked softly.
“Two, actually,” she replied. “You have waged all-out supernatural war on American soil…and you have detonated a nuclear weapon in the line of duty.”
David winced. Michael O’Brien had led the counterattack to the Montana Incursion, when the Masters Beyond had managed to launch a major supernatural invasion into a thankfully desolate and remote area. He’d also, during nuclear tests in the seventies, lured the first High Court demon to enter the world into a blast site and triggered a megaton nuclear warhead in its face.
“How bad is the fallout?” he asked.
“Literally?” Warner chuckled. “Not bad. The containment spells you dropped on the bomb worked. The radiation was contained; the spread of radioactive material is close enough to zero that we can publicly pretend it wasn’t a nuke.”
He winced again.
“Metaphorically, I don’t think we really know yet,” she continued. “This was not what you were supposed to use the bomb for, David. Detonating it inside the complex wouldn’t have been as noticeable!”
“It wouldn’t have carried the day, either,” he pointed out.
“No. There will be consequences for this, David,” she warned. “I hate playing the terrorist card, but the bastards gassed an entire fucking National Guard base. Officially, they gassed the base and tried to steal a MOAB—and were shot down over Crater Lake National Park, triggering the bomb.”
Even a MOAB—the bunker-buster known as the “Mother of All Bombs”—wasn’t as powerful as the nuke they’d set off, but it would cover for what had actually happened.
“The terrorist card plays into a lot of hands I’d rather not have given that kind of ammunition,” Warner noted, “but the Familias didn’t exactly give us a choice.”
“So, what happens now?” David asked. “Between the fledglings, the Keepers, and the surrenders, we have over seven hundred vampires in the Mountain. They’ve promised a Truce, to observe the new code the Arbiter wants to impose, but so long as—”
“So long as Standing Order Twenty-one exists, that won’t change anything,” his boss agreed. “David, you know some of those vampires were involved in gassing the base. All of them, except some of the Keepers and fledglings, have killed. What do you expect us to do?”
“We need to choose, Major, between whether we want revenge for the past or peace for the future,” he told her. “We have a chance to end this war, to make peace with a group that should be our own people. Would you be able to look the family of the next Agent to die fighting vampires in the eye and tell them we could have had peace but we chose war?”
Warner sighed and nodded.
“You realize you’re going to have to push this?”
“All the way to Washington,” David agreed. “We need to put the Committee and the Arbiter in the same damned room. Let them look him in the eye and condemn his species to death, if they have it in them.”
“I’ll talk to Ardent,” Warner promised. “I’ll get you the damn meeting. What do you need from me?”
“A Pendragon with a blacked-out passenger compartment,” David said. “We need to get three vampires and me to Washington DC by this afternoon—and you and Ardent need to get the Committee to agree to meet us when we get there.”
She laughed.
“Who is supposed to be giving orders here again, Commander?” she asked, but she held up a hand when he started to apologize. “You have the plan, you have the momentum. We’ll have that Pendragon here ASAP and we’ll get you and your vampires to Congress.
“Everything after that is up to you.”
MCCREERY TOOK the controls of the helicopter once it arrived and hopped it into the tunnel, solving the problem of how to get the vampires into the blacked-out passenger compartment.
“Our ride is here,” David told the two Sisters standing outside the Arbiter’s quarters. “Is he ready?”
“I am ready,” the Arbiter answered for himself, opening the door and stepping out. He wore his dark red priestly robes and leaned on a plain wooden walking stick. The two younger vampires stepped up to support him, but he waved them away.
“I am old and sore, my dears; I am not helpless or dying,” he told them. “Are you ready, Commander?”
“How much do I need to be ready for?” David asked. “I’m just the man getting the door open for you, Arbiter. You’re the one who gets to make the pitch.”
“If you think your words will have no impact on what happens today, Commander White, I have a bridge in San Francisco for sale,” the old vampire replied. “Come, let’s go, then.”
Stone fell in with them as they headed toward the exit, where Kate and Samuels were waiting. The two Mages were going to remain behind, along with a company of Anti-Paranormal troopers—roughly half of the AP troops left after the last six months.
“Keep them safe, Commander Mason,” David told her.
“You certainly set a sterling example of what to do, Commander White,” she replied. “One way or another, they’ll be waiting for you when you get back.”
“I know,” David replied. “We’ll be in touch, Commander.”
“I know,” she echoed. “Good luck.”
He found himself once more meeting her gaze and leaving words unsaid. This, he knew, was exactly why anything between them was a bad idea. That just hadn’t stopped it happening anyway.
“McCreery?” he said loudly.
“We’re fueled and ready to go. All windows in the passenger compartment are blacked out. ETA at Washington DC is eight PM tonight.”
“All right. Let’s go.”
38
There was absolutely nothing on the outside to make the four-story white stone building look at all different from a dozen other small office buildings scattered through Washington DC likely housing some small government department no one had ever heard of.
It was just down the street from the Capitol and had a helicopter landing pad on the roof, but that wasn’t really a clue to the building’s true nature. The fact that it didn’t have any kind of sign on the outside was a hint that it wasn’t exactly normal, but it was hardly the only office building in DC without identifiers.
Landing on the roof just after dark, however, David and his companions found themselves swiftly met by six Capitol Police officers in black suits, all of them openly carrying the distinctive M4 Omicron carbine. All of the six—so far as David could tell—were human, but something had been done to their suits.
He was pretty certain he could take them all, but he doubted it would be as easy as a supernatural who hadn’t been paying attention might presume.
“Commander, we need to see your identification,” one of the officers told David as soon as he exited the helicopter.
David calmly handed over his ID folio. No one standing on the roof of this building wouldn’t be cleared to see Omicron-issued IDs. The officer skimmed the documents and then handed the folio back.
“Thank you, Commander White. We understand you are escorting three…individuals who will be giving a presentation to the Committee?”
“That’s right.”
“We’ll need them to surrender any weapons they are carrying,” the officer said
flatly.
David glanced at the three vampires in the helicopter.
“Did any of you even bring weapons?” he asked.
The Arbiter chuckled.
“We did not,” he assured them. “But, of course, we will permit the officers to search us. Indeed, I insist. The security of the Committee is of paramount importance to any supernatural citizen of this country.”
From the USCP officer’s expression, that wasn’t the response he’d expected from demanding the vampires surrender their weaponry. He nodded anyway and gestured for his people to search the Arbiter and his escorts.
The officers patted them down quickly and professionally before pronouncing them clean.
“Follow me, please, Commander, sir, ladies,” the leader told them. “Colonel Ardent and the Committee are waiting.”
“Thank you,” David replied.
“You have no idea how wrong it feels to be letting vampires in here,” the man half-whispered to David. “Are you sure about this, Commander?”
“We’ve been at war with them for two hundred years, Lieutenant,” David told him. “It’s time to try something different while we’re all still here.”
“True that,” the office allowed. “I don’t know if I agree with what you’re doing, Commander White, but it’s you. Good luck.”
“Thank you,” David repeated.
THE INNOCUOUS OFFICE building contained the in-the-know staff and bureaucracy that enabled thirteen Senators and Congressmen to act on behalf of the elected government of the United States of America in the affairs of the supernatural.
It also contained, on the ground floor and buried behind multiple layers of electronic, physical, and magical security, the luxuriously adorned meeting room in which the Special Committee for Supernatural Affairs met.
The Capitol Police escorted David and the three vampires down to that room and stopped outside.
“Do all of you really need to go in?” the officer asked, glancing hesitantly at the three vampires.
“No,” the Arbiter replied instantly. “The Commander must come, obviously, but I can leave my escorts behind.”
“We’d appreciate it,” the USCP Lieutenant admitted.
“You are nervous about permitting vampires into the presence of the Committee, I understand,” the Arbiter told him. “Anything in my power to make you more confident in our goodwill, I will do.”
“There isn’t anything else I can think of,” the Lieutenant admitted. “Go on in. They’re waiting.”
David led the way, the Arbiter falling into step behind him as he stepped into the meeting room before he could think about just what he was doing.
The room was large enough for each of the Committee members to bring multiple staff members and even had seats and folding desks for them. Nonetheless, there were only fourteen men in the room today: the thirteen members of the Committee and Colonel Ardent himself.
Their seats had been arranged into a semicircle, with a single table and two chairs in the center, where everyone could see them.
“Take a seat, Commander White, Arbiter,” Ardent instructed. “You sought this meeting, so I leave it to you to explain to the Committee just what it is you have promised in their name.”
“I promised only that I would bring the Arbiter’s Truce before you,” David told them after taking his seat and watching the Arbiter slowly and carefully do the same. “We are faced with an opportunity, gentlemen, to end the long-standing conflict between us and the vampires, to recognize them as citizens again—with all the responsibilities and rights that entails.”
“There was a reason, Commander White, that our predecessors passed Standing Order Twenty-one,” Senator Albert Day told David. The Senator was a stereotypical politician David had met before, a paunchy man of middling height with shockingly white hair around a large bald patch.
“We have evidence that vampires cannot be trusted, that they must kill to survive,” he continued. “We do not enjoy having ordered the death of a race, but the preponderance of evidence suggests that they truly are the rabid dogs we have treated them as.
“Does this…‘Arbiter’ argue against that?”
David glanced at the old vampire, who nodded to him and leaned forward.
“I am very old,” he said softly. “I was at the French Court when we decided to support the Revolution that birthed your United States. I saw the Crusades firsthand. I have seen empires rise and fall, from Alexander’s to Kaiser Wilhelm’s.
“And for most of that time, all that you have said has been true of my species,” he admitted flatly. “A small number of us were forced to avoid human blood to raise the next generation, but most found humans simply easier to find and feed on than other sources.”
“We are supposed to believe this has changed?” Day demanded.
“I have made it change,” the Arbiter stated harshly. “I have spent a hundred years researching the ability to store and transport animal blood that would work for vampires. Thirty years acquiring the slaughterhouses and building the logistics infrastructure.
“The network is in place for every vampire in North America, not just the United States, to never need to touch human blood again. That allows what the Familias has termed the Arbiter’s Truce: if you will lift Standing Order Twenty-one and pardon their actions before today, they will forswear human blood and honor the laws of this nation.”
“And what proof do we have this oath would be kept?” Ardent snapped.
“I will bind their oaths in magic and blood,” the Arbiter told them. “Some of the adults may elude that oath, but I swear to you: no teknon will leave the Crèche without swearing that oath. Let my people be citizens again, gentlemen, and I have made it possible for them to live without death.”
The breath fled the vampire in a rush and he half-collapsed onto the table.
“My apologies,” he forced out. “I am weak tonight. I can only beg of you, Congressmen, Senators: so much has been sacrificed to convince the Familias to agree to this. Do not throw it away. Give my people a chance.”
The room was silent.
“Commander White,” Day said slowly. “You were bitten by a vampire once, correct?”
“I was,” David confirmed. “I survived because of an antivenom we have on hand—an antivenom I recently learned the Arbiter here provided us the formula for.”
From the old vampire’s twitch, that hadn’t been a piece of leverage he’d planned on using.
“At least one ONSET agent has been infected as we speak,” David continued. “If we cure her, she will die. If we permit her to turn, Standing Order Twenty-one would require us to euthanize her. We would lose one of our competent and loyal Mages.”
“In exchange for safety from these bloodsucking monsters!” Senator James Clay, a massive black man with a shaven head, snapped. “They are rabid and infectious. I cannot believe we are even considering this!”
“Senator, the Arbiter and his Keepers have forsworn human blood for decades, centuries in many cases,” the Commander pointed out. “They are proof that vampires do not need to kill to survive. You have all been briefed on my Sight: I swear to you that what the Arbiter has said is true.”
David looked around the room and shook his head.
“A thousand vampires died on the slopes of Mount Scott in the last three days,” he reminded them. “Many of them were younger, survivors of Vietnam or other eras still in conscious memory…but others were not.
“Men and women died on the slopes of Mount Scott who fought in both World Wars. Men and women died who lived through Prohibition. Who listened to Abraham Lincoln give speeches. Who fought in the Civil War—or in some case, the Revolution!
“There is a woman standing outside the doors of this room who saw the Declaration of Independence signed as a child. The Arbiter here invaded Persia with Alexander the Great.
“They are living history, and living history that we have fought and destroyed for years,” David told them. “With reason,
at that. We did not start this war: they did. Now they are offering to surrender, to give up that which makes them feel powerful in exchange for allowing them to once more be people.
“Until today, that living archive of history was unavailable to us behind a shield of blood and war. Now they are offering to yield, to compromise.
“We can seek vengeance for what has happened—or we can consider the fact that sixty percent of the vampires in North America are now dead as justice enough and look to the future.
“I did not promise them safety.” David admitted. “I promised merely that I would present their cause to you and demand a hearing.”
The room was quiet for a long time.
“Commander White, could you please escort the Arbiter outside?” Day finally asked. “Do you have a full copy of the text of this…‘Arbiter’s Truce’?”
“I do. Colonel Ardent should have a copy,” David said, gesturing toward his boss.
The Colonel inclined his head toward David.
“I will have a staff member bring in copies to enable your discussion,” he said calmly. “And then I believe that I too should leave you to your deliberations.”
THE GUARDS SHOWED David and the vampires to a seating area, where the Arbiter gratefully took one of the old wooden chairs with a sigh of relief.
“Are you going to be okay?” David asked the old vampire, who seemed to be feeling every century of his age right now.
“I will live,” he confirmed. “Recovering from this kind of blow will take time, time I have not had.”
“Your oaths?” David questioned.
The Arbiter nodded.
“You will learn,” he noted. “Be wary, Commander, of swearing by your immortality. Magic takes such things very seriously.”
“I am not immortal,” David objected.
“You are as immortal as any vampire,” the Arbiter pointed out. “You will see. And remember, Commander White, that I will be there when you need me. I owe you that much.
ONSET: Blood of the Innocent Page 27