Veiled

by Benedict Jacka

  “They’re Council bodyguards,” Luna said.

  “They said these ones were reported stolen?” Variam said.

  “Bullshit,” I said. “That’s like a Challenger tank getting stolen from the British Army. The army doesn’t lose battle tanks, the RAF doesn’t lose jet fighters, and the Council sure as hell doesn’t lose mantis golems. Whoever went after us tonight, they’re in close with the Council.”

  Luna started to say something, but I held up a hand. “There’s something else. Leo was holed up in that house for two days or close to it. We find him, and he gets attacked less than half an hour afterwards. I don’t think that’s a coincidence. I looked into the futures while I was waiting for Caldera. There wasn’t any danger, not as long as we stayed outside. Maybe those guys were looking for Leo, but I don’t think they would have found him on their own. I think something we did brought them there.”

  “Could have been tracking you,” Variam suggested.

  “There’s a simpler explanation. Between going into that house and the attack starting, we did exactly one thing that could have given our position away. Caldera used her com disc to get in touch with her order. And she activated a locator beacon.”

  Variam frowned. “Wait,” Luna said. “I thought you said those communicator things were supposed to be untraceable? And no one could intercept them?”

  “He’s not saying they were traced,” Variam said. He was watching me, his voice flat. “You’re saying you got set up.”

  “Wait,” Luna said, her eyes going wide. “You’re saying the Keepers want to kill you? You managed to piss them off that much already?”

  “If the Order of the Star really wanted to kill us, we’d already be dead,” I said. “I told you, the target was Leo.”

  “What happened to him, anyway?”

  “We couldn’t find him,” Variam said. He didn’t take his eyes off me. “You think someone in the Order of the Star’s a traitor.”

  “I hate to sound cynical, but it’s probably more than one,” I said. “You know how many factions there are on the Council—they’ve all got their agents and their areas of influence. Leo was connected to the Rayfield case, and Haken already told me that half a dozen factions are interested. One of those factions must have not wanted Leo brought in.”

  “Do you think they wanted to kill him first?” Luna said.

  “More likely they kidnapped him.”

  “Who was it?” Variam said.

  “That I don’t know.”

  “You said there was an ice mage and a force mage,” Luna said. “You could try that . . .”

  “Doubt it’ll help,” I said. “Whoever’s behind this probably isn’t the kind to do their own dirty work. No, what we really need to figure out is what Leo knew that was enough of a threat for them to move like this.”

  “He was a witness,” Variam said. “If he’d made it, first thing they’d have done would have been pull him in for an interview . . .”

  “. . . and find out what he saw,” I finished. “But we do know what he saw, because of Caldera. He saw the guy the rest of the Order of the Star’s been looking for. Rayfield.”

  Luna’s eyebrows had been gradually climbing higher and higher, and at this point she put up her hands. “Ugh, God. This is so confusing. I have no idea what’s going on anymore.”

  “Maybe if you actually went to your politics classes,” Variam said, “instead of bunking off to go duelling.”

  “Oh, like you’re some sort of—”

  “Luna, Vari! Not now!”

  Luna and Variam shut up. I pulled over the notepad that Chalice had used earlier in the evening, flipped to a new page, and began sketching. “It’s not as complicated as you think. Here.” I turned the pad around; I’d drawn an equilateral triangle with the three corners marked and labelled. “There are three factions that we need to worry about. First is White Rose.” I tapped my pencil to the first of the three corners. “Whoever they are, they’re the ones who sent Leo to that meeting with Rayfield two nights ago. As far as we know, they haven’t done anything else, but if Caldera’s that careful around them then they’re not anyone we want to mess with.”

  Variam looked down at the diagram and then up at me. “You’re explaining this by drawing it in a triangle.”

  “And . . . ?”

  Variam shook his head. “You are such a geek sometimes.”

  I moved my pencil to the second corner. “Next faction is our mysterious group who were behind the attack tonight. We know they’ve got ties to the Council and some way of getting supposedly secure data from the Keepers. They also wanted Leo silenced, so I think it’s a safe bet they’ve got some kind of investment in the Rayfield case. Either they don’t want the truth getting out, or they want to learn it first.”

  “The Keepers think those people and White Rose are the same people,” Luna said. “Right?”

  “Right, which I’m not buying.” I touched the tip of the pencil to the last corner, labelled with a name and a question mark. “And finally, we’ve got our dark horse. The ones who hired Chamois. That’s where this whole thing started. Chamois crashed the meeting between Rayfield and Leo at Pudding Mill Lane, he either killed Rayfield or made him disappear thoroughly enough that no one’s found him, and the focus got lost in the fight.” I tapped my pencil on the question mark. “This is the key to the whole thing, I’m sure of it. If we can figure out who Chamois is working for, and why he attacked Rayfield, we’ll understand what’s really going on.”

  “Okay . . .” Luna said. “So how do we do that?”

  “That’s the problem,” I said. “I have no idea. So we’ll have to work on the two groups where we do have something to go on.” I moved my pencil to the other two points. “I’ll go talk to Caldera tomorrow, find out what she knows about White Rose. What I can’t ask about is this Council group. I’ve got my suspicions, but if I go poking around it could lead to really bad things. You guys are apprentices though. Especially you, Vari—I think Landis might know a bit he’s not telling.”

  Vari nodded. “I want to try talking to Chalice,” Luna said.

  “In the middle of this?”

  “Well, since someone won’t let me come along on their important official Keeper stuff, there’s not much else I can do, is there? Besides, none of the guys you’re talking about would know anything about what’s happening on the Dark side of the fence. And we already know she wants to talk to me.”

  I sighed. “All right, but I want you to take Anne along for backup. We don’t have any good reason yet to believe that Chalice is a danger, but that doesn’t mean she isn’t.”

  “Oh well.” Variam yawned and stretched. “I’m off home. Sounds like tomorrow’ll be interesting.”

  | | | | | | | | |

  The next morning was overcast, white cloud filling the sky all the way to the horizon. It had rained during the night, and the weather forecast promised more to come. Luna had stayed over, and we had breakfast together and discussed plans before I went off to see Caldera.

  Caldera lives in Hackney, in a seedy-looking area with a lot of council estates. It’s not quite a dump, but it’s not high-class, either, and I doubt you’d find many other mages living there. Caldera has a flat on the second floor of a converted house; I got inside, climbed the stairs, and knocked.

  There was a pause. The door and walls around the flat were warded, and I could feel the latent energy waiting to be used. Then they shifted slightly, and all of a sudden the configuration was less threatening. Caldera opened the door and looked me up and down. “Oh, it’s you.”

  Caldera was wearing a baggy T-shirt, tracksuit bottoms, and slippers. It was the first time I’d seen her dressed in something that you couldn’t do heavy manual labour in. “Hi, invalid,” I said, and held up a package. “I brought grapes.”

  “Okay, you can stay.”

&nbs
p; I handed her the bag and walked in. I’ve only been to Caldera’s flat a couple of times, but I quite like it. It’s messy and comfortable, filled with old bottles and coffee mugs, the kind of place where you feel as though you’re allowed to put your feet up. “Going for the casual look?”

  “I’m on sick leave,” Caldera said in distaste. “Can you believe they wanted to keep me in the bloody hospital?”

  “Yes. Yes, I can.”

  “Oh, and by the way, if you want to get inside, you’re supposed to ring the bell and wait for me to buzz you into the building. Not knock on my door.”

  “Sorry.” I dropped into one of the armchairs and grinned at her. “Every time I see a security setup that bad I just have to go through it. I’m doing you a favour, really.”

  “You’re a pain in my arse is what you are.”

  “You feeling better?”

  “Course I’m better. Only reason I’m here is because Rain made it an order.”

  I made a noncommittal sort of noise. I’d been watching Caldera since I came in and she didn’t seem to be in pain. Still, as she went to get a bowl and a drink from the kitchen, her movements were more sluggish than usual, and it wasn’t until she returned and dropped into the sofa that I saw her shoulders relax. Caldera’s tough, but whatever healing she’d received had obviously taken a lot out of her. I had the feeling Anne could have done a better job but decided not to say that out loud.

  “So the indictment’s set for this afternoon,” Caldera said. “I want you at the War Rooms at noon, okay?”

  “What time?”

  “Could be any time. Might want to bring something to read.”

  “Sounds great. Who’s the indictment for, Chamois?”

  “White Rose.”

  I blinked. “Seriously?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well,” I said. “Remember Torvald? We put in a request about him the beginning of last week and they still haven’t got back to us. Chamois tries to kill me on CCTV two days ago and there’s no movement on that either. This attack happens less than twelve hours ago, and there’s a Council indictment already.”

  “Yeah,” Caldera said dryly. “Kind of a difference there.”

  “Look, I haven’t pushed you on who these White Rose people are,” I said. “But if I’m going to an indictment in your place, you don’t think maybe you ought to fill me in?”

  Caldera sighed. “Get me a beer from the shelf.”

  I looked back at Caldera for a second, then got up, fetched the bottle that she was pointing to, and brought her a glass. Caldera twisted off the cap bare-handed, poured out half of the bottle, waited for the foam to subside, poured out the other half, and took a drink. I sat and waited.

  “I guess you do need to know,” Caldera said at last. “But get something clear. This does not get spread around. I know you like to chat with your friends and those magical creatures of yours, but you get caught discussing this, I’m not going to bat for you.”

  I nodded.

  “All right,” Caldera said. “Let’s start at the beginning. The baseline law for mages is the Concord. Under that are the national laws.”

  “Okay,” I said. The Concord is the international set of laws that all mages are required to follow. They’re pretty useless if you’re not a mage yourself, but breaking them is still a fairly big deal, as long as the victim is someone the Council cares about. Underneath that there are the national laws, passed as resolutions by the ruling Councils of each magical nation, and those vary from country to country. They aren’t allowed to conflict with the Concord, and the penalties for breaking them are a lot less serious, but it’s still a good idea to know what they are.

  “Now, a bunch of those laws regulate how mages are allowed to deal with other humans,” Caldera said. “There’s the prohibition on slavery, and the laws against harming normals and sensitives and adepts.”

  “Uh, yeah, in theory. I’m not sure how much they actually get followed.”

  “Light mages and independents follow them most of the time.”

  “When it suits them.”

  “I said most of the time. Yes, those laws get broken. Yes, we don’t always catch the ones who do it. But the fact that they follow those laws is the big difference between Light mages and Dark ones. How many Light slave traders do you know?”

  “Maybe they don’t do it publicly, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen.”

  “And do you know for a fact any Light mages who do it? With evidence?”

  “You aren’t seriously telling me you don’t believe it ever happens.”

  “I’m not a moron, all right?” Caldera said. “Of course it happens. But the laws are there, and they do have an effect. It’s like the speed limit. Yes, everyone knows people break it, but if they get caught breaking it there are consequences. And so they don’t push it too far. You get me?”

  I wasn’t particularly happy with having slavery and murder equated with breaking the speed limit, but I knew arguing about it wasn’t going to accomplish much. “I get you.”

  “So, if you want to be a Light mage, especially if you want to work with the Council, you have to follow the national laws. You have to play nice. Okay?”

  “Okay.”

  “A certain fraction of Light mages are not nice.”

  “You don’t say.”

  “They want to be part of the Council and have all the perks. They also want to get to do all the same kinds of things that Dark mages get to do. They have a problem. White Rose is an organisation that specialises in solving that problem.”

  “So White Rose provides a nice discreet brothel service?”

  “Okay,” Caldera said. “When I told you they were a brothel, that’s not the whole story. The kind of guys who go to White Rose . . . if they wanted sex they’d just hit up an escort agency. White Rose does the kind of stuff you can’t ask for out in the open.”

  I was starting to see where this was going, and I didn’t like it. “You mean kids like Leo.”

  “Kids, heavy-duty sadism, snuff scenes. The workers are slaves, obviously. Then you start bringing magic into it. Let’s say you’re a client of White Rose. There’s some new pop singer you’ve got your eye on, you see her in her music videos. You decide you want a piece of that. White Rose is happy to help. They’ll find one of their slaves with a good physical resemblance, maybe get themselves a new one if it’s a special order. Then they’ll get to work. Flesh-sculpting or glamours to make her look the part, mental control to make her act the part. They soften them up first, then do most of the heavy lifting with mind magic. By the time they’re done, the girl thinks she is that person. They can put in other bits too. Make her in love with you, switch her programming so she has to do whatever you tell her, set it up so she goes for your fetish. Whatever you like.”

  “Jesus,” I said in revulsion. “I knew Dark mages did stuff like that, but . . . They make a business out of this?”

  “Yeah, and their business is booming. They don’t just sell to mages either: they’ve got a whole regular client base. You wouldn’t believe me if I told you how much they make off those custom orders.”

  “I don’t think I want to. The Council knows about this?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Then why—?”

  “First, White Rose isn’t staffed by Light mages. They’re all Dark or independent. And they’re careful never to break the Concord. Their slaves are all normals or sensitives, never mages. They even steer clear of adepts.”

  “Screw the Concord. That’s not just violating the national laws, that’s breaking them over your knee and stamping on the bits. Did you just say it was like—?”

  “Second,” Caldera said, cutting me off, “most of White Rose’s clients are normals with a lot of money. But a few of them are Light mages who don’t pay in money. Guess what they
pay with instead.”

  “They’d . . . oh, fuck. White Rose wouldn’t want money from them, would they? They could get that anywhere. From the Light mages they’d want influence.”

  “And they get it,” Caldera said. “A whole ton of blackmail material.” Her face was unreadable. “This is the fourth time I know about that we’ve tried to get an indictment against White Rose. The last three times the answer was no. They’ve got too much dirt on Council mages.”

  “And that’s what I’m going into the middle of,” I said, realising suddenly how this was going to affect me. “Do you think it’s going to be different this time?”

  “Maybe. For all the fucked-up stuff that they do, this is the first time White Rose has attacked a Keeper. They’ve crossed a line.”

  “Assuming it was them.”

  Caldera looked sharply at me. “Do you have evidence that it was someone else? Something you’re not telling me?”

  “No, I just saw the same things you did. You don’t think it’s a funny coincidence that that strike team showed up right after you called in our location on your communicator? Which stopped working as soon as we needed it?”

  “What exactly are you suggesting?”

  “You said it. White Rose has influence on the Council.”

  “Don’t.”

  “And the Keepers work for the Council—”

  Caldera made a short motion, cutting me off. “I said don’t.”

  “Are you seriously going to stick your head in the sand about this?”

  “Shut up,” Caldera said. She was leaning forward on the sofa, staring at me, and her eyes were hard. “Get something clear—you are not a Keeper. You do not get to make accusations like that. Talk like that outside this room where other people can hear and you are going to get a fucking bridge dropped on you. You don’t understand Keepers and you don’t know how much shit you can get into doing this. I’ve gone to bat for you before, but I’m not jumping off a cliff just because you can’t keep your mouth shut.”