Bite Back Box Set 2

by Mark Henwick

  Inside the main auditorium, Skylur was already sitting relaxed at the front. His arms rested on the arms of his chair and his fingers were steepled. He looked completely at ease, a man with not a worry in the world.

  So, it was that bad.

  Alongside him was Imiso Correia, leader of the Hidden Path.

  Yelena, Elizabetta and I sat in the seats reserved for us in the first row.

  I looked around.

  Over the last week, the Athanate Houses had started to group themselves into geographic areas and alliances that vested votes in a nominal head of the group, so the numbers in LA had gone down dramatically. Two weeks ago, the auditorium would have been full. Now we were down to major players, about fifty of them. With their security. The early hour had obviously been no barrier to showing up for this discussion.

  Eugenie, House Passau, sat three rows back and smiled at me. She represented a large section of the European Houses. I still had some friends here, then.

  The other person I saw a few seats away was Amelie Prowser. Skylur seemed to think she wasn’t an enemy, but I wasn’t sure I trusted her.

  Many of the others I only vaguely recognized. The drawing of the battle lines between Panethus and the newly formed Hidden Path seemed to have shaken up the mix of representatives.

  Skylur leaned forward almost as soon as we had settled.

  “Thank you,” he said simply, and the room fell silent. “This is a briefing discussion. The presence of House Farrell as syndesmon has been requested, so I’ll speak in English. The scope of the discussion is the implication of legal codes at the interface between human and paranormal races.”

  Correia stirred, but didn’t interrupt.

  “I’d also emphasize that this is a briefing, not a vote,” he continued. “In light of their independence from both parties, I’ve asked House Stanbrigge of the Midnight Empire to give a summary of positions as an opening statement.” Skylur gestured to Stanbrigge.

  “Thank you, House Altau,” Stanbrigge said as he stood. “I’ll keep it brief, and I know I won’t capture the full nuances of the positions of all groups and sub-groups. Forgive me, but time presses.”

  There were tight smiles from the audience. I’d been told this was the longest period such a large group of Athanate had come together in one place since the ill-fated meeting in Orleans on the Loire in the late 17th century, when half the attendees had died violently.

  “Everyone accepts that, at some stage, it is possible that humanity will discover the paranormal world. Everyone accepts that a discovery that catches us unprepared could be fatal to us. Panethus believe discovery is inevitable and imminent. What divides us is not only what we do at the time of discovery, but also what we do in preparation for it.”

  Correia looked to interrupt with a comment, and Stanbrigge held up a hand. “Or what we might usefully do to delay it.”

  They didn’t know that Emergence had already begun, but I couldn’t share that with them.

  Correia subsided and Stanbrigge went on. “The Hidden Path contend that the Athanate could prevent discovery, or actively delay Emergence until we are fully prepared and are capable of taking effective control of enough of the world to ensure our survival. The Hidden Path do not believe any internal changes are necessary, and so the legal system as enshrined in the Hidden Path philosophy should remain unchanged and be imposed on the rest of the world.”

  There was a rustle of Athanate shifting and whispering. Stanbrigge had summed it up fairly, but the Hidden Path party didn’t like it phrased so bluntly.

  “Panethus are the party promoting Emergence,” Stanbrigge said. “They argue for changes to the ways we live and operate to minimize the impact of discovery, to minimize the appearance of differences. In short, to position ourselves so that humanity perceives us as symbiotic and neither parasitic nor threatening.” He paused, deliberately. “The official Panethus line is that preparation should include amelioration of our laws, in particular restricting the force of our laws and traditions exclusively to those within our communities and acknowledging human laws governing those outside of them.”

  I could feel the unease of the Panethus around me, but the summary was fair. If anything, it slightly favored us.

  And unknown to them, we were already talking to the FBI through Agent Ingram. I doubted he’d wait too long before taking the next step and getting his boss involved. Assuming it all went well. How that was handled with the new Assembly was up to Skylur. Way above my pay grade. I hoped.

  Meantime, Correia’s supporters were waving and shouting foul.

  Stanbrigge waited until he could make himself heard. “We are not yet discussing the matter. I will take questions on the validity of my summaries only,” he said, and looked meaningfully at his watch. He pointed to a woman in the Hidden Path group and called a name I couldn’t hear.

  “No amount of mincing words will hide it,” the woman said. “Panethus would allow human law to reach into our communities, and through events that might not be preventable, humans would therefore have jurisdiction over Athanate. This is not accept—”

  “Thank you, you’ve made your point. Noted. House Singh?”

  I hadn’t seen Arvinder until Stanbrigge called his name.

  Would Arvinder be on our side? He was here as the sole representative of Theokos, the Athanate creed that covered the Indian sub-continent, and would carry a large block of votes in the new Assembly. Theokos were nominally Panethus, but they didn’t have kin like the rest of Panethus, they had devotees. It was only because they’d joined Panethus at the last Assembly that Skylur had survived the vote of confidence. What must Correia have been whispering in Arvinder’s ear to tempt him back to her side?

  And the only thing I really knew about his position was that Arvinder disagreed with Skylur on the management of Emergence.

  His handsome, rakish appearance made me think of Peshawari hill bandits. Clearly, I had a soft spot for hill bandits, because I still liked him, despite his attempts to lure me away to join House Singh.

  “Your summary of positions is far from complete,” he said.

  What?

  “The Midnight Empire declines to debate and will accept the decision of the new Assembly without complaint,” Stanbrigge responded. “Basilikos have no voice here. They’ve indicated they’ll take no part in the new Assembly.”

  There were some loud comments made about Basilikos being present, and just calling themselves Hidden Path.

  Arvinder waited until it died down. “As it is beyond the scope of today’s meeting, I will say only this: that Basilikos may have no interest in the Assembly, but the Assembly cannot have no interest in Basilikos. However, that was not my point. You have stated the positions of the Hidden Path and Panethus, and declared the Midnight Empire outside of the debate at the moment. But among other parties whose positions we must know, there is the Empire of Heaven, and they are very much present.”

  Crap.

  I sensed a shifting of bodies and caught a glimpse of Huang far to my right.

  In defying Huang, had I screwed everything up for Skylur? I didn’t see what I could have done differently. Skylur knew I didn’t know where Tullah was, so I couldn’t have told Huang even if Skylur had ordered me to in order to get Huang’s vote. In fact, he’d told me to avoid Huang whenever possible. I just hoped that Huang didn’t turn against us because of my refusal to help him.

  I thought back to what Adept Emerson had said to me, weeks ago now, after we’d spoken to Huang on the video conferencing system in Haven. We’ve woken the sleeping dragon.

  I wished Alice Emerson was in LA. Bian didn’t agree, but I was interested in what she had to say about a lot of things, and especially now about the Empire of Heaven.

  Meanwhile, Stanbrigge nodded and sat back down, his task complete.

  “Diakon Huang.” Skylur’s gesture invited him to have his turn to speak.

  Here it comes.

  Chapter 46

  Huang walked to
the center of the floor and stood still, waiting until the silence spread.

  When he did speak, his voice was so quiet everyone had to lean forward to hear.

  I didn’t know what I’d expected, but it certainly wasn’t what came.

  “I am old, even as we Athanate count it,” he said.

  His words were slow and formal, with a rhythm that seemed to carry me along.

  “Many, many years ago, I buried my father in an unmarked grave, beneath a solitary linden tree on a south-facing hillside, near a quiet river. In the heat of summer, the linden’s leaves are thick and dark and green. They take the shape of hearts, and beneath their shade, the ground is always cool; the air always holds the scent of limes. As winter nears, those leaves turn and fall like a harvest of the richest gold, and make a crown to rest upon my father’s head. Between the wars that tore our land, I would return there, and lie on that hillside. It eased my soul, and restored my strength in a time of great turmoil.

  “Then, beside my father, I buried my sons and my daughters, their youthful faces as yet half-formed, unblemished by age.”

  Huang paused and looked up and down the ranks of Athanate. We were silent. The whole auditorium had unconsciously synced their heartbeats with their neighbors’, until we were a creature with a single pulse—waiting, listening.

  “No man should bear that sorrow,” Huang continued. “No woman either, and my wife joined them before the leaves had fallen again. I planted the trees that were their only markers.

  “From that moment, I slept only when exhaustion took me, because on waking, for a moment it was as if I could turn and see my wife again, only for that dream to fade, and the nightmare of life to begin all over again.

  “When the Emperor found me, I sought death every day in the face of the enemy. What prize could he offer me, in my despair, that would make me want to become immortal? What reward to become Athanate, and know that sorrow for eternity?

  “He spoke to me; simple words, words he told me he first heard from the lips of the Kumemnon herself, her own words, from the Lamentation of Arunne: This is the gift and the sorrow of the Athanate; to see your loves pass before you like the days of summer, while your heart still beats. To keep your vigil in the shadows, and rise again with every sun.

  “That part you all know. Many carve it above doors to their hidden sanctuaries, to remind them that as there is light, there must be darkness, and the world turns regardless.

  “But the Lamentation goes on: To be bound upon the wheel of heaven; to toil and toil and never be done. To love without reserve forever, and rise again with every sun.”

  He paused, and in the depths of the auditorium the Athanate shivered as the words touched us.

  Huang went on.

  “That is what he said to me, and I bared my neck to him.

  “On that hillside now, beside the quiet river, there grows a forest, such that I may not find my family’s trees among those that mark my kin. I return there sometimes for a night. To sleep, to dream, and rise again with the sun.

  “The war took away my family, and my Emperor replaced it with duty. He offered me no soft consolation, no comforting lies. As one who passes from childhood must put away the easy refuges of youth, to become Athanate is to shoulder a greater destiny. And to achieve that, one may not live as a human may live, under the strictures of their society.

  “The Athanate people must retain their own laws and customs.”

  As one body, breath sighed into a hundred throats.

  Diakon Huang bowed his head and returned to his seat.

  Shit! The ground just moved under our butts.

  Huang’s first contribution to the meeting, and he’d sided with the Hidden Path. If that was a sign that he favored the party, it’d mean they would run the new Assembly.

  Disaster.

  He can’t be serious.

  Skylur’s face was unreadable.

  It was Stanbrigge who seemed to recover first.

  “House Singh,” he said. “Are you satisfied you’ve heard a sufficient summary?”

  “No,” Arvinder said. “But we have to proceed regardless, or be here forever.”

  In a dazed auditorium, with everyone trying to assess what had just happened, Skylur and Correia alternated calling Houses to speak.

  After the first two or three, it was clear. I could feel it. We could all feel it; everyone sensed the weight of Huang’s speech had tipped the balance in the meeting against Panethus.

  This was a discussion, but if we voted now, it would go against Skylur.

  Correia looked more and more satisfied with every speaker.

  I wanted to scream at Skylur, ‘Do something!’ If the Hidden Path was in control when humanity found out about the paranormal, it was the worst of all possible combinations, and that time might not be far off. Naryn was starting the Emergence process with Agent Ingram, and I couldn’t yet tell Skylur about it.

  Bizarrely, thinking of a situation where the world tore itself apart, all I could visualize was Mom saying to me and you’re one of them, and crying.

  Then Diakon Huang indicated he wanted to speak again.

  Utter silence. Had he realized the way his speech had been taken? Was he going to modify his position?

  “I am a newcomer here, and I have a great respect for this institution. I have no desire to upset an existing balance.”

  Which meant what?

  “We have reached a point where the positions of Panethus and Hidden Path are well known.” He opened his hands, inviting any other opinion. No one said anything. “Maybe it is time to expand the conversation to include the Were and Adepts. As an unaligned entity and one with some experience of cooperation between these groups, I suggest that the initial discussions take place between me and the available liaisons for those bodies.”

  I felt a pit had opened in front of me. I wasn’t a politician, but I was sure that Huang had just made a deliberate link between his vote potentially changing the balance of power in the Assembly, and him getting to talk to me as syndesmon.

  And though there wasn’t an equivalent syndesmon for the Adepts, what if he got hold of an Adept community leader and recruited them into helping him look for Tullah and Kaothos? How long could they hide if everyone was looking for them?

  As for me meeting with Huang, the man was scary. If he thought there was some clue to where they were in my memories from when Kaothos broke the lock on Diana, what else would he see? Me going rogue?

  But Skylur and I couldn’t ignore Huang’s request—not without raising suspicions about my fitness as syndesmon.

  Huang was looking at me. I was looking at Skylur.

  The door opened and a familiar voice spoke.

  “Not going to happen.”

  Heads swiveled to see who it was. I knew the voice, of course.

  Alex came down the steps, eyes wolf-gold. I saw him for a second as other Athanate saw him: tall, untamed, the hint of wolf around him like a cloak.

  Behind him were Billie and Haz, both menacing in their badass biker gear.

  “You need to explain your comment and your interruption of this Athanate meeting, Alexander kin-Farrell,” Skylur said.

  It was Altau security that had let them in, of course, and Skylur was making sure everyone knew that Alex was part of the Athanate community as my kin.

  “He has no right to speak here,” someone shouted.

  “This meeting has already agreed the new Assembly will include Were and Adept.” Alex matched the volume. “I have a right, and that’s the reason we’re here.”

  Alex had reached the front.

  I couldn’t sit. Yelena and I joined him.

  “Diakon Huang talks of his respect for this meeting,” Alex said. “I have no respect for it.”

  There was a hiss of shock that rippled through the ranks of Athanate. And me too.

  “The arrogance of the Assembly and the Athanate goes on exactly as before,” he went on, before anyone challenged him. “You think you�
��ll talk to us when you’ve decided what part we’ll be allowed to play in your grand plans.

  “If you can’t see the problem with that, then the new Assembly won’t work. No Assembly will have a right to decide matters for the paranormal community without the active participation of that entire community from the beginning. And no Assembly will have our active participation unless we are included in the formation of it as full and equal partners, elected by the same methods you use to claim representation.

  “Discussions about adopting or adapting our laws and traditions will have to wait until there is a body with enough representation to make those decisions on behalf of the paranormal world.”

  It was as if he’d set off a bomb. In the stunned silence that followed, Athanate wondered if their hearing had been damaged. We’d been shaken from our preoccupation with Athanate politics to realize there weren’t Athanate politics any more, there were only paranormal politics.

  Even I had been keeping things in their own compartments. But Alex was right; those compartments couldn’t exist now.

  And another ripple passed through the Athanate—the same realization that had just passed through my head. Even Hidden Path Houses were nodding reluctantly.

  Correia’s voice eventually broke through the quiet murmuring.

  “Whose authority do you have for these statements?” she said.

  “I’m speaking for the Denver pack and their associates,” Alex replied. “And on an informal basis, their allies. That covers most packs from the heart of the country, from Nevada to Missouri. We’ve opened communications with east coast packs, and I guarantee you they will agree.”

  “And I’m here representing the League of Southern Packs, stretching from Arizona to Texas,” Haz said.

  “And a league being formed right now of west coast packs,” Billie finished, and looked sideways at her companions. “We’ll likely be all one league or association soon, if what I’m hearing from New Mexico is confirmed.”

  “We’re a long way from representing all Were,” Alex said, “but I assure you, even those we don’t represent will not agree to Athanate handing down decisions to them.”