“What do we do?” David asked.
“Why are you asking me?” Tahoe replied. “I cannot act far beyond my lake. I am a spirit of the water and the mountains. I can send my constructs out into the world, but once they pass beyond these shores, they may as well be mortal.
“The fate of man will be decided by man. Your people forged the Seal, transformed your gods of light and darkness into monsters all.”
“We reap what we sow, huh?” David said grimly.
“You reap what Solomon sowed,” Tahoe corrected. “This fight is yours, David White, Kate Mason. I have done all I can for you.
“Look to the dragon you summoned and the allies you have called to you. The war is coming.
“Be ready.”
22
One of the advantages of being a regenerator—and especially of being a shapeshifter—was that it was easy to do things like grow a beard to make yourself less identifiable. A week into hiding, Michael O’Brien was the proud owner of shoulder-length hair and a neatly trimmed but large beard, a look he hadn’t sported since about 1977.
Despite his drastic change in appearance, he was somehow unsurprised when his pub lunch was interrupted by someone sitting down across from him.
The big werewolf leveled his best death glare at the stranger and took a pointed bite of his sandwich. The stranger chuckled.
“You’re a hard man to find, Brigadier,” he pointed out. “I’m not going anywhere until we talk.”
Michael swallowed, met the stranger’s eyes, and then took another bite.
The other man was a stout white-haired man, with the leathery skin of someone who’d spent a lot of time outside and the wrinkles of someone who spent most of that time smiling. Despite the difference in their appearances, he was almost certainly younger than Michael.
He also, it seemed, wasn’t going anywhere. The werewolf finished his bite, glared some more, then gestured the waitress over.
“I’ll get another sandwich,” he told her, then gestured at the stranger. “On his tab.”
The white-haired man gave the girl a nod to confirm. She swerved away, and the two men went back to glaring at each other.
“You’re not Seraphim,” Michael concluded. “Or this would have already become messier than I’d like.”
“No,” the man agreed. “I would be dishonest if I didn’t warn you that the building is surrounded by them, however. Their orders are to let you leave, but if something happens to me…”
“I don’t know who you are,” Michael replied, “or who you think I am, but I’m not in the habit of randomly killing people.”
“No, you’re not, Brigadier O’Brien.”
Michael sighed.
“You’d think fifteen years would be enough for people to forget that title,” he said acidly. “You have my attention. Now tell me who you are and speak your piece.”
“I’m Dr. James Savida,” the man told him. “We met when you were Brigadier, during the early tests of what became the Seraphim Program.” He smiled. “I had different hair then.”
The werewolf leaned back and studied the man. Replace the white hair with jet-black greasy strands hanging down to the shoulder and held back with goggles. Swap out the plain suit for a protective lab coat. Widen the smile and take away the wrinkles. Take three decades off of the man…
“Yeah, okay, I remember Dr. Savida,” Michael allowed. He even would mentally allow that this was Savida—it had been long enough since they’d met. “I also remember that his project was a complete failure and we nearly lost the first human volunteers.”
Savida nodded calmly.
“You remember correctly,” he agreed. “We didn’t lose anyone that time, thank God. Some of the volunteers died from complications later on, though,” he admitted. “I…regret that.”
“I thought the project was canned.”
“Sidelined,” Savida corrected. “The Committee chose to focus on thaumaturgically enhanced mechanical augmentations instead. The hope was that a suit of, well, enchanted power armor would be more easily transferred between personnel than a drug or transformation process.
“We continued our work. Very carefully; I refused to have more losses. It was fifteen years, O’Brien, before we even tested on monkeys, let alone people. But…ten years ago, we perfected the Seraphim Serum and the Wing delivery device.”
“And never said a word to Omicron,” Michael said.
“The purpose was always to have a counterweight to Omicron,” Savida pointed out. “Besides, mass-producing the Seraphim Serum and Seraphim Wings took years.” He shook his head. “Purcell’s people blew through six months of production taking over that black site of yours.”
“This history lesson is all fine and dandy, but what the fuck do you want?” Michael growled. His second sandwich arrived as he finished, delaying Savida’s response.
He bit into the food with more force than necessary as the doctor shook his head.
“When I created the Wing and the serum it contains, I envisaged Omicron spawning dark lords or demon princes and turning upon us,” he admitted. “The first New York Incident, the one the public doesn’t know about, was close to what we created the Seraphim to counteract.
“But ONSET dealt with it. And the backup was a nuke, not Sigma Force.
“Now…Major General Purcell is using his people to suppress Omicron on the orders of the President.” Savida shook his head. “I should note, Michael, that the Seraphim outside are not Sigma Force or Task Force White. They are my personal bodyguards.
“We’re back at what do you want, Savida?” Michael repeated.
“I did not make it as far as I did as a mundane chemist studying the supernatural without contacts in the world behind the Masquerade,” the doctor told him. “The supernatural citizens of the United States are terrified. Something is coming. You’ve felt it, I’m sure.”
A vague sense of foreboding, yes, but Michael would have blamed that on the government going crazy.
“I am here on behalf of two people,” he concluded. “The first, and the one who told me where to find you, is Major General Purcell, the commanding officer of Sigma Force. Officially, Sigma Force isn’t part of Task Force White, but his people are on standby to back them up and what he isn’t saying is that he’s also the commander of Task Force White.
“He wanted to pass on his regards and inform you that Sigma Force has no intention of pursuing you further. Officially, they’re the cleanup team, tying up the loose ends of Omicron.
“In practice, they’ve already seen far too many of the messes that ONSET was dealing with to focus on anything else,” Savida said grimly. “The Major General warns you that there is a warrant for your arrest but he, and I quote, ‘is not chasing a hero who chose his consequences when he has real monsters to fight.’”
“That’s reassuring,” Michael said dryly. “You’ll excuse me if I don’t pop back up and start using my main bank account anytime soon.”
The doctor chuckled humorlessly.
“I imagine it won’t take long for those charges to disappear along with everything else about ONSET,” he pointed out. “But for now, I doubt the General expects anything different. He also doesn’t know who else sent me.”
“And who was that?”
“A mellon,” Savida said calmly. “A mellon ah tas a nifred.”
Michael blinked, taking a moment to translate the Sindarin.
A friend. A friend with a task and fears.
“And what do the Elfin want?” he asked.
“Lord Riley fears for our country,” the doctor told him. He slid an envelope across the table. “He is assembling a…last-chance option for if everything fails.
“There is an access card in the envelope. It will get you into a secure part of the commercial airport. There is a plane leaving this evening with a special cargo.
“Part of that cargo has been rigged for air drop. It could use an escort—and is going to Lord Riley.”
Michae
l studied the envelope.
“And what’s the cargo you want me to see safely to the Elfin?”
Savida shrugged.
“One hundred Wings and two thousand doses of Seraphim Serum,” he admitted. “Ones that were never on the books. Just…in case, you understand.”
“And what happens you, Dr. Savida, if that gets found out?” Michael asked.
“I go to jail for a very long time,” the old man said levelly. “Probably more time than I have left…but I can feel the storm gathering, Brigadier. I am afraid, and this is all I can do.”
“You trust Riley, then,” the werewolf said.
“No,” Savida admitted. “But I trust you.”
Michael O’Brien chuckled.
“Well, if you put it that way…”
23
Kate Mason, it turned out, owned a sporty red convertible. David had never actually seen her personal vehicle, since ONSET had provided most of the cars and aircraft they’d used to do their jobs.
Now, of course, those immense resources were gone. Some of them locked away in warehouses, some of them taken over by Task Force White and SOCOM, some just…gone.
It was a weird feeling, not being part of something larger. It had its advantages—as Kate had enthusiastically reminded him during the two nights they’d spent in motels on this road trip—but it was a strange feeling.
Now his girlfriend pulled the car into the parking lot of a huge hotel overlooking Lake Michigan. Despite the scale of the parking lot, the closed sign at the front gate resulted in it being mostly empty. The road from that gate to the final lot was winding, keeping the parking lot out of sight of the highway.
The squadron of Bradley IFVs parked at one side of the lot, being checked over by a trio of young women in denim coveralls, were a hint as to why the hotel was closed and why hidden was important. Part of the pavement had been blocked off with heavy concrete barriers to create a temporary helipad.
There were four relatively standard civilian helicopters, two heavy-lift aircraft and two lighter vehicles, but pride of place went to the pair of Pendragons sitting in the middle of the temporary canvas hangar set up over them.
The men and women guarding the hangar might have been dressed in a random mix of wet-weather clothing—the forecast was for rain and it was clouding over above them—but they moved and carried their weapons with military precision.
All of them were also supernaturals. If they weren’t Elfin Warriors, well, David was a monkey.
Kate pulled the convertible into the section of the parking lot still being used for its original purpose, slotting it in amidst a chaotic mix of vehicles from black government sedans to dark green 1990s near-junkers.
He had a sudden very strong sense of being watched and twisted in his seat, detecting the point of view. Suddenly, he understood exactly how Charles had known he was Seeing the dragon.
“Tell Riley we’re here,” he told the unseen observer. “He’s expecting us.”
He felt the surprise from the other end of the link, and then the “sensor” disappeared. Kate arched a neat blond eyebrow at him and he grinned.
“Apparently, I can now pick up when someone is using the Sight to watch me,” he told her. “Intriguing, if nothing else.
“Shall we?”
His lover laughed and leapt over the side of the car. Like the Warriors, she was dressed for the rain in a long black coat that flickered around her in the wind, and she smiled widely as he carefully opened the door and exited normally.
“Let’s get the cover up first,” she told him. “Give Riley’s Seer a chance to recover from the shock you just gave her—and protect Jessica from the rain.”
At some point, David reflected, he’d understand people who named their cars. For now, however, he helped Kate pull the cover of her convertible up.
Brianna Young met them in the main lobby of the hotel. The luxurious space showed no sign of the renovations supposedly being carried out at the moment, beyond the complete lack of staff.
The Elfin Lord’s Second was a tall woman with a dark-red pixie cut and a gloomy expression. There, behind multiple layers of security, she dispensed with the pretense of being anything but what she was: a trained warrior, tasked with the personal security of one of the most powerful of the Elfin Lords.
Her sword, an enchanted elf-blade forged by Riley himself, was slung across her back, and she had an bullpup battle carbine hanging from her left shoulder.
“Welcome to the Ambrose Overlook,” she told them. “As you can see, we’re in the middle of some renovations and we don’t have all of our usual amenities.”
“But as a bonus, you have tanks, armories and attack helicopters?” David asked.
“If there’s any tanks outside, nobody told me about them,” Young replied. “And they’d better have told me about them.”
“The Bradleys?” he said dryly.
“Glorified APCs and we both know it,” she snapped. “Tanks aren’t really the forte of the kind of deal we’re trying to put together here. Pendragons are more to my taste, but I’m not even sure how Jamie got his hands on those.”
“I’ll admit to being curious,” David replied. “But also…what kind of deal are we putting together here?”
“That’s for Jamie to brief you on,” the Elfin Second replied. “But there’s one thing I want clear before I take you upstairs, Commanders.”
“We’re not Commanders anymore,” Kate pointed out.
Young shook her head.
“No one here gives a fuck what Omicron says,” she noted. “You’re still Commanders as far as we’re concerned.”
“I suspect we’d need a command for that,” David said.
“You’ll have that,” Young told them. “But that brings me back to my point: this isn’t an Elfin affair. Several members of the Conclave are aware of what’s going on, but this isn’t an Elfin operation. It’s not a vampire operation either, though you’ll see both Familias and Keeper vampires in the Overlook.”
“Wait, the Keepers left the Mountain?” David asked, surprised. The Keepers were the stereotyped-into-cliché “vegetarian vampires,” whose task was to deal with freshly converted vampires for the year or so it took them to become sane again.
The Mountain was the crèche they did so at, a facility that was still very firmly under the control of the US government. The Keepers’ leader, the Arbiter, had made sure that a supply of magically-sustained nonhuman blood was available to every vampire in North America at least, but David didn’t trust the vampires to behave without that knife at their racial throat.
“Some of them,” Young concluded. “Apparently, they’re allowed to fight demons? Just not humans or other vampires. Their pacifism only applies to parahumanity.”
“If this isn’t Elfin or Familias—and it sure as hell isn’t US government—what is this place?” Kate asked.
“This is Riley’s personal insurance policy,” she told them. “He’s begged, borrowed, stolen and bribed the Elfin, the Familias, the voodoun, and what’s left of his contacts at the government to pull it together.
“If something comes apart before the government is able to deal with it again, we’re his solution. But remember that all of this is on Riley. He’s committed every resource he has to this. Every drop of political capital.
“If this force is needed, he stands to lose everything…and to have saved everyone.”
“If this force is needed, we all stand to lose everything,” David said quietly, shivering as he remembered his visions beneath Lake Tahoe. “And I’m afraid this force will be needed. I have…Seen what is coming.”
“Fuck.” Young sighed. “Then I guess we should go see the boss ASAP.”
Elfin Lord Jamie Riley stood on the balcony of the penthouse suite Young led them to. The Lord General of the Elfin Warriors was an older man, slimly muscular with black hair starting to edge to silver. He was looking out over the lake to the east.
While he was alone on the balcony,
he wasn’t alone in the suite. David exchanged familiar nods with the two vampires standing just outside the light. Knowing the Keepers were here, he wasn’t surprised to see Gabriel standing in the room.
The gracefully athletic vampire woman with the black ponytail was the Guardian, the vampire Mage charged with defending the crèche against all threats. If the Arbiter had sent any of his Keepers to battle, the Guardian would lead them.
The second vampire was something of a surprise. Joseph Reginald had been one of the founding Justices of the Omicron Circuit, the traveling judges that had pre-dated the various offices David had served.
An unfortunate encounter had resulted in the tall, fair man becoming one of America’s oldest remaining vampires, and the only one, to David’s knowledge at least, to have actually met the Founding Fathers of the United States.
When they’d last met, Reginald and David had dueled to the edge of death over whether or not the Familias Reginald would surrender and accept the Arbiter’s peace. A long scar marked the vampire’s face where Memoria’s demon-forged magics had forced an injury to heal almost normally.
The vampire patriarch didn’t seem displeased to see David, though, gesturing for the two ex-ONSET Commanders to come in when he saw them.
“Your other guests are here, Lord Riley,” he said politely.
“I know,” Riley replied. “Leila told me.”
As they walked out, David realized that Riley wasn’t actually alone on the balcony. The other occupant, however, was sitting in a wheelchair off to one side, looking out over the lake with milky white eyes.
“Bring the Battle Seer to me,” she ordered, and David could hear her age in her voice. Wispy white hair seemed to float around her frail form in the wind, but he went to her regardless.
“Ma’am,” he greeted her. “I don’t believe we know each other.”
“You do not know me,” she agreed with a quavering laugh. “But my boy here has told me much about you, and I have Seen more. I know the change that has come upon you, child, and I must admit: I envy you.”
Stay of Execution Page 13