INCURSION: Faeblade (Knight's Bane Trilogy Book 2)

by Bryan Donihue

  When the majority of the patrons were on the ground and writhing or bleeding out, several of the humans wearing the vests with "POLICE" stenciled across the back drew knives and swords. Even as some patrons struggled and put up resistance, they went through the crowd stabbing, slashing, and hacking their way across the room. Dancer turned away and left the truck when the body parts began flying; her stomach was still upset from her trip inside the club.

  While the crew with knives and swords went through the crowd in the main area, small groups of assailants wandered off to check the rest of the building, and occasional pops of gunfire and screams of survivors were heard. Within ten minutes, every Seelie in the club was dead, either lying in a pool of its own fluids or faded back to its original realm. As they were filing out, the last human in the building stopped, took off their helmet and goggles, and looked straight at the camera. The smile on the man's face was absolutely demonic.

  When the video stopped, Doc let out a long breath, as she was trying to force her horror down so that she could process the video. She looked around at the team, and Boomer and O'Beirne were pale and shell-shocked. Kanak was openly weaping. Spooky looked puzzled. Puzzled?

  Spooky cleared his throat. "Did you see it? Did you see where the video gave itself away? Don't you see how it was fake?"

  Four pairs of eyes stared back at him, unblinking.

  "Seriously, how could you miss it? Ok, you probably missed the really subtle ones, but how do you not see the obvious." Spooky was genuinely confused at this moment.

  Doc was the first to speak, her voice trembling from witnessing the rage and violence, "Obviously we don't see it. How do you know this footage is fake?"

  Spooky smiled, "Oh. Well, let me show you." He reached out to cue up the video again. He explained as he was working.

  SPOOKY HAD BEEN GIVEN the hard drive pulled directly from the video recording deck. Once it was connected to his system, the electronics specialist rapidly duplicated the entire drive, consulted his notes, made a few mental calculations, and reviewed the footage. He watched the whole attack and aftermath twice before he began noticing anomalies.

  The young agent couldn't figure out why the images were bothering him until he realized that the footage was an HD-quality signal before the attack, but it switched to a lower-resolution video during the attack. About two minutes after the last assailant walked out of the club, the feed inexplicably switched back to the standard HD-quality that it was before the attack. He began running algorithms and filters on the copied data, but he found no underlying reason for the degradation of the video.

  Setting the copy aside, he grabbed the original hard drive and searched for forensic indications of digital tampering. The young man quickly found several traces of file deletion and insertion. Spooky smiled a predatory smile, grabbed an energy drink out of the mini-cooler by his workstation, and began recovering the missing data.

  The former NSA specialist knew that simply erasing files on a computer never truly erased the data. A standard "delete" command would only erase the header information—the electronic bits that told the computer there was actual data on the drive. There were several commercial data recovery solutions available on the general market, but Spooky had long ago built his own specialized software.

  Spooky muttered, "All right, Mr. Gopher. Go dig me up some data." He clicked his keyboard to launch the retrieval app. A small dancing gopher popped up on screen and cavorted around the screen. A couple minutes later, the little animated gopher waved goodbye and disappeared into a hole as a report popped up on the screen.

  The young electronics specialist pushed his glasses up his nose and looked at the report. He quickly noticed where the files were originally deleted and sent his program to retrieve the data. As it worked, Spooky turned to another monitor and began searching for cameras on the street. He found out there were two cameras that would show the building from the outside at two different businesses.

  The first was a small mom and pop convenience store about three stores down. He noticed the camera connected to the store's exterior was an IP-based camera, which meant the feed was available online. Not wanting to wait for official subpoenas, he went to work with a backdoor password that the NSA had already built into the system. Finding the right camera did not take long, and in a few minutes he was able to recover the footage from the night in question. He downloaded that footage while working on the other source.

  The other source was a local bank branch. Spooky again decided to forego the official process and simply breached the network. Using other passwords available from the NSA, he was quickly through the firewalls and into the main surveillance servers. Searching for the correct time and location took scant minutes, and soon that video file was also being downloaded to his system.

  The footage from the convenience store was downloaded first. The footage showed an almost empty street moments before the attack began. Then two black panel vans pulled up and stopped in front of the building. Spooky watched as the bouncer at the front door stepped forward, likely to tell the vans to move. He walked two steps and then reached for the gun tucked into his jacket. The bouncer was barely able to draw his gun when he began jerking from bullet impacts. Spooky watched as the man crumpled to the ground, then begin to fade from this plane of existence.

  Suddenly, both vans disgorged two groups of creatures. The electronics specialist began paging through the files for fae as he noted which types were attacking the club. A selection of automatic rifles and shotguns were passed around while swords and daggers were sheathed on most of the creatures’ hips. All the creatures went inside the club. Twelve minutes later, the last of the attacking fae walked out of the club, and it was laughing maniacally.

  Spooky re-ran the footage. He counted as eighteen fae went into the club. Only thirteen fae left the club. Unfortunately the resolution and quality of the video did not allow him to see any license plate information, and he could only identify a handful of the fae.

  As he was writing down some of his observations, the former NSA analyst noticed that the bank footage had downloaded. This view showed the front of the building from the opposite angle. This one was a higher resolution so he was able to make out partial plates as the vans pulled up to the club.

  Spooky watched the scene unfold from a different angle, this time seeing what the bouncer originally reacted to in fear. He was able to identify a few more of the fae. He feverishly wrote notes about what he saw. He needed to be able to point these things out to the others.

  Two minutes later, Spooky was slamming another energy drink down when his Mr. Gopher routine notified him that it had retrieved the data. Spooky settled back to watch the footage that was lost. He was soon regretting that he had drunk that last energy drink. It was souring in his stomach at the raw, unedited carnage.

  Spooky watched the screen as all eighteen creatures burst through the front door and began randomly shooting, stabbing and slashing patrons. The inside door bouncer was the first to be dispatched. A full burst of rifle fire killed him outright, and a slash with a wielded sword lopped the poor bastard's head off.

  By the time people realized that something was wrong, it was already too late for their escape. As the groups separated to cover more of the club, Spooky found the lack of defensive attacks from the patrons disturbing. It was almost as if the patrons had gotten so lax that they could not be bothered to defend themselves. Here and there, small pockets of resistance were forming, and the attackers were using those areas as target practice. In doing so, the attackers were killing some of their own.

  There. A fae took an assailant's own rifle and shot the human with it. Over there, a man in dark robes and wielding a silver dagger was clubbed with a chair from behind by minotaur. The seething anger and strength of the massive beast made the blow powerful, Spooky saw the angle of robed-figure's neck as he slumped to the floor. Before the robed-figure settled to the floor, three large-caliber shots slammed into the minotaur. It was dead bef
ore the other figure stopped twitching.

  The brutality of the attack seemed to last forever. When the rifle fire stopped, several of the attacking fae stepped forward and used their pistols to finish off those who were merely wounded. Some went through the crowd with their swords and daggers, slashing and stabbing those still living fae. The blade-bearing attackers were creative and cruel, often cutting off parts of their victims before finishing them, just to make them scream.

  The attack ended and the only sounds in the club were labored breathing and the dripping of blood and ichor. One-by-one, the assailants filed out, leaving a last person standing to survey the carnage. He was a very tall black man. Spooky estimated his height at around seven feet tall, and his skin was the deep rich dark brown of an African tribesman in the jungles, not the lighter skin of those with different bloodlines. And he was naked. The naked man was laughing and reveling in the charnel house around him. As he walked out, he paused at the base of the security camera over the door. He looked up directly at the camera. His eyes glowed a deep, rich red, and the man grinned with an evil that Spooky felt come through the monitor.

  The former NSA analyst was stunned. He could do nothing but sit there for a few minutes and stare at the last frame of the footage, the man with a sinister, predatory grin on his face. He finally snapped to and overheard the conversation that Doc was having with Kanak. He decided to butt in and let everyone know what he found.

  THE TEAM and Kanak stood shocked, staring at the image on the monitor before them. Kanak was the first to speak.

  "Oude Rode Ogen." The elfkin said. "Old Red Eyes. Now we have proof that this is Unseelie, because that spawn of demons never works without their direction."

  Spooky typed furiously on the keyboard in front of him as Doc spoke up, "How nasty is this thing? Are there any known weaknesses with this creature?"

  Kanak turned to the priest. "He is literally the spawn of a demon and human pairing. If he has come out during this, what is his end game? The Queen must be told of this."

  Doc responded before the elfkin could do anything rash, "The Queen will be informed. We were invited by Her Majesty to investigate the attack, and we will be bringing all of our findings to her at the same time. We have another team out tracking down other leads."

  The priest looked around at the gathered monster hunters and Kanak, "We still need to process the rest of the scene. If I remember fae law well, the Keepers will want much more evidence than a tampered video. Continue collecting evidence so that we can present our findings tonight."

  With a renewed sense of purpose, the team went back into the club to gather evidence, followed by Kanak. Knowing what to look for, the team was able to find many more instances of fae weapons being used, and other signs that pointed to fae warfare. They also found the other three Unseelie, all with weapons and armor supplied by the khoztak black market.

  As they wrapped up their investigation, Etan Kanak directed his other security team members to clean up the site and dispose of the bodies properly. Within minutes, a fire restoration truck rolled up, and the crew got out to begin working. Moments later, a large refrigerated box truck rolled up to the front of the building. The back door rattled as it rose to the top of the frame, and two elfkin came down carrying large bundles of black plastic. Doc recognized the body bags and realized that this was the full cleanup crew.

  After exchanging contact information with Kanak, the Section 28 crew loaded into the Wunder Buggy and drove out of the neighborhood. Doc called Ghost to relay their findings and get the results of his investigations. It was another half hour before they returned to the airport, pulling up beside the giant Air Force jet serving as their Mobile Command Center. As they climbed out, they were greeted by the fresh DHS guards.

  Boomer was the last to climb out of the truck, and she had six pizzas from a local restaurant carried in one hand. She shut the door and chirped the lock. The demolitions expert smiled and handed one of the pizzas to the guards standing outside, "This job shouldn't be all bad. I hope you like pepperoni."

  The guard's face lit with a wide grin as he thanked her. As she walked up into the MCC and closed the door, the second uniformed guard was joining the first for a slice of the pie.

  15

  TAKEN

  GERALD R. FORD INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT

  As the team and Captaen O'Beirne devoured the pizzas placed before them, they discussed their investigations. Once they connected by videoconference to Agent Smith at S28 headquarters, Ghost began, "After we got the ultimatum from the Queen, we split the teams to investigate. Alpha was with me, and we went to talk to the Society for the Preservation of Humanity. SPH turned out to be a dead end, but led to a new group called Zero Tolerance."

  Agent Smith broke in, "And how is Mister Lancaster doing, Mister Vanhof?"

  Ghost smiled, "I figured you two had met. Lancaster is doing fine and honestly did not seem to know about the attack. He is the one that named another suspect, an incursion survivor by the name of Nate Miller." The team watched as Agent Smith typed on his computer terminal. After a second, their boss looked back at the camera. Ghost continued, "Miller started Zero Tolerance when he was rejected by SPH for being too militant. This guy gathered a bunch of his good-old-boy friends and they play monster hunter."

  Ghost glanced at his notes, "We interrogated Miller and his friends, but that was also a dead end. He fingered SPH for the attack. There was one troubling aspect of this. When we were talking to the group, Miller received a call on a burner phone. After he hung up, he pulled the SIM and threw it in the fire. He then broke the phone in pieces and threw those in the fire. Before I could ask him about it, he announced that we couldn't be trusted because we had a vampire on our team. Spooky's been working on pinpointing the phone number to trace the records, but he's been unsuccessful so far."

  Smith looked perturbed. "I'll look into that from our end. I doubt it is someone inside our group. It may be a congress critter's staff. We had some confidential reporting after your last mission."

  Ghost nodded, "Ok. I'll let Doc tell you about her experiences."

  Doc stepped forward into the camera frame. She looked at her notes and began, "My team was assigned to the crime scene. When we got there, we talked to the head of security, and get the video footage from that night. I gave it to Spooky for processing and asked him to see if there were any other cameras in view of the building. Then the rest of my team went inside."

  Doc went on to discuss what they saw inside, including the extent of the massacre. "I don't think any of us were prepared for the amount of bodies and the sheer carnage in the room. It reminded me a lot of the slaughter of the town leaders in Colorado. Lots of weapons fire, and lots of missing pieces. We also found five corpses that were apparently Unseelie. That wasn't the only evidence we found against the dark court."

  The priest nodded to Spooky, and the electronics specialist linked in parts of the video that they had recovered. The team's medical doctor spoke as the clips played, "This first clip is the one we received from the club security. It looks like a human police or SWAT team raiding the club and killing everyone in it. In fact, the video doesn't even show any injuries to the attackers. Spooky noticed several anomalies within the video, so he went digging. This is the video he recovered."

  The former NSA analyst switched clips and showed the recovered footage. Doc began again, "This is the recovered footage. As you can see, this is not a human SWAT team. It's a fae assault team, positively linked to the dark court. What is most interesting is the last images... There, Spooky." The image frozen on the screen was the large man with glowing red eyes."Oude Rode Ogen."

  Agent Smith blinked. He then typed furiously on his keyboard and stopped to read the surrounding monitors. He slowly looked back at the camera, "This is the first image I've ever seen of this fae. Old Red Eyes was always a myth, a legend. I've never seen any concrete evidence of this creature before. I'll put together a packet for you."

  "Thank you, si
r. Spooky was also able to find some corroborating video evidence from a local bank and a nearby convenience store. It is quite apparent that the Unseelie court is behind this attack. I believe we have all the evidence we need to convince the queen to not hold humanity culpable."

  Smith was nodding as the priest was talking. He spoke up, "Thank you team. Great work. Spooky, send me the files you have, including the reports from your teams. You may have to stay out there a little while longer until the Queen gets this matter settled. As a reminder, you are Signatories representing humanity. You are not to get into internal Fae Court dramas. Observe. Represent. Call me for approval for anything else. I'll talk to you tomorrow."

  The video conference winked out and Spooky transmitted the reports and packages to headquarters. As the team finished their meals, they walked out and climbed into the Wunder Buggy for the short ride back to the hotel. When they arrived, each team member broke off and wandered back to their rooms to get some sleep.

  When they got to their suite, Boomer approached Doc and let the priest know that she was going for a walk. Doc asked her if she wanted company, and Boomer answered in the negative. The demolitions expert said she wanted to walk and think a little bit.

  The young agent walked toward the lobby of the hotel. As she walked out of the suite, she was stopped by Dancer. The new agent said she wanted to talk to her mentor about something that was weighing on her mind and wondered if she could join the demolitions specialist.

  The two young women walked out of the hotel together. Heading generally south, away from the busy main roads, the pair wandered back through a light industrial area. They walked past several businesses, including a gun range, all of which were closed for the evening. Walking further south, they talked about the current mission. Boomer asked her young protégé what was bothering her.

  "I'm not sure. I'm worried I can't hack this gig. Heck, I puked my guts out at the crime scene earlier. I don't know if I'm right for this team."