He still took a moment, standing like a rock in the midst of those rushing crowds, to look at the building before him. Only the stark carving of the Office’s initials into the stonework above the door gave any clue at first that he was in the right place, but his continued regard revealed more.
The building might have looked superficially identical to those around it, but it still differed in half a dozen small ways. The other buildings around it were divided only by cramped alleys, where the OSPI building had a small park—lacking in any trees tall enough to block fields of fire—on one side, and a double-wide and suspiciously clean truck access alley on the other. His Empowered gaze noticed that the glass in the upper floor windows was thicker and denser than in the surrounding buildings, and there were no windows on the lower level. The four sets of heavy oaken double doors were the only break in the gray concrete on the ground floor.
Those doors opened readily enough as David finally entered the building, revealing a second set of doors six feet away. These doors were also heavy oak, each of them bearing an American flag carved into their surface. Unlike the outside doors, the interior doors were marked to his Sight as enchanted with security spells, and more mundane training spotted the recessed slots above them that would allow solid steel doors to seal the entrance in a lockdown.
He barely allowed his assessment of the doors to slow him as he crossed the entryway and stepped through into the public lobby of the Headquarters of the United States Office of Supernatural Policing and Investigation.
#
The lobby was only slightly less plain than the gap between the doors. It was a medium-sized room, wider along the entry wall than it was deep. A large curved desk occupied pride of place on the far wall, its heavy wood forming a psychological barrier between the receptionist behind it and anyone forced to occupy the uncomfortable black plastic benches that lined the concrete walls around a repressively cold and empty concrete floor.
Right now, those benches were empty, and the only occupants of the room other than David and the secretary were an American flag in each corner. A handful of outright ugly landscape paintings dotted the walls. The receptionist didn’t even seem to have noticed his arrival.
David approached the desk, vaguely intimidated by the stark austerity of the surroundings. He knew OSPI had to keep a low profile, but this Spartan, ugly lobby would have looked at home in a free clinic in the slums.
As he crossed the room, he began to realize its true purpose, however. The desk was heavily enchanted and would likely protect its occupant from almost any attack. The roof was too low—even lower than it had been in the gap between the doors—and almost certainly contained some nasty surprises for an unaware attacker. One of the ugly paintings had turned somewhat on its hanging, revealing a hatch David recognized from the Campus’s defenses as being a weapon slit.
The room was designed to function as a killing ground if anyone assaulted the skyscraper, and as David stepped up to the receptionist’s desk, he Saw the woman behind it for the first time and knew she was no secretary but a highly trained Mage who could add her own power to the strength of the defenses.
“Can I help you?” she asked coldly.
“David White,” he identified himself, looking at her carefully and allowing the FBI-style suit he was wearing to do much of the talking. “I believe I should have an appointment?”
The woman touched something in front of her—an LCD touchscreen concealed by the desk so as not to break the image of the poor and Spartan lobby, David realized—and then looked back up with a smile that softened her face incredibly.
“Good afternoon, Agent White,” she greeted him, her eyes meeting his for the first time and dancing with a spark of humor. “Welcome to OSPI HQ. We apologize for the lobby, but we’re renovating.”
“How long have you been renovating?” David asked, with a glance around at the very permanent looking benches.
“About forty years,” she responded with a grin, and offered him her hand across the desk. “Inspector Deanna McDonald, Agent. You are expected.” She touched the screen again and the door on her right popped slightly out with a click, and then swung open as its motors caught it.
“Director Morrison is waiting for you in the main lobby,” McDonald told David. “If he doesn’t ambush you, ask the receptionists in there to point him out.” She glanced down and then lowered her voice. “According to my memo, you are not to meet Father Rodriguez without speaking to Director Morrison.”
“Understood,” David confirmed, wondering who this Director Morrison was and what he wanted. Nobody had said anything to him about a briefing before the interview, though he realized now that it made sense.
“Go on through,” the Inspector instructed, and David obeyed, stepping through the automatically opened door into a second, much larger room—OSPI’s real lobby.
#
The second lobby was a far more ornate affair that the concealed abattoir David had just passed through. Bare concrete gave way to a familiar plush blue carpet, which, unlike the ever-present flooring at ONSET Campus, was decorated with evenly spaced gold sunbursts.
The sunburst motif was repeated on the marble columns that decorated the walls at two-yard intervals around the room. A single gold sunburst marked with a stylized Omicron was engraved onto each white marble column at eye level.
The furniture in the room was all a uniform navy blue. A cluster of four couches stood to David’s right around a large hotel-style fireplace, and three more stood in the far corner beyond the elevator doors to his left.
Another large solid-oak desk blocked the access to the second set of elevator doors in the far right corner of the room, and its elegant style contrasted sharply with the recognizable biometric suite set up around the single door leading to the elevator area.
The couches held a scattered handful of men and women in business suits, and a quartet of uniformed receptionists slash guards stood behind the desk. None of the four were openly armed, and David’s Sight confirmed all were mundane, but he doubted they were defenseless.
“Agent White!” a voice greeted him, and David turned toward the couches on his left to see that a man had left them and was walking toward David with his hand extended.
David took the man’s hand firmly. “Director Morrison?” he queried.
“Indeed,” the director replied. He was a tall man, head and shoulders taller than David, and whip thin with it. His face was only lightly marked by age, but his hair was pure white and his three-piece charcoal suit was the ultimate in conservatism.
“Walk with me, Agent,” the Director instructed, and headed toward the biometric scanners allowing access to the rest of the building.
“Director,” David acquiesced, and followed the older man.
“I imagine you’re wondering why you were ambushed here,” Morrison said calmly as he and David both presented ID and thumbs for the scanners.
“Just a little bit,” David admitted, eyeing the Director carefully. He wasn’t even entirely sure what agency the Director was with. The man carried himself with authority and calm, but the security guards weren’t deferential enough for him to have been the Director of OSPI. Besides, Mark Anderson held that position. David knew that name.
“I’m with the ISA Office,” Morrison explained as he gestured David to the elevator.
David blanked. For all of his study of America’s Omicron Branch, he didn’t remember that office.
“International Supernatural Affairs,” Morrison elaborated after a moment of silence. “My office is relatively small, and we never impact ONSETs operations much, so I’m not surprised you don’t know about us,” he continued.
“We interact with the other supernatural government agencies around the world, and other groups in the know—like the Vatican,” Morrison said quietly as the elevator door closed behind them.
“This is the first time a Papal Investigator has set foot on US soil in fourteen years,” the old man told David, running
his fingers through his white hair. “Now, I’m sure Michael told you to tell him the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, right?”
“Right,” David confirmed, eyeing the man. He wasn’t sure he liked where this conversation was going.
“Now, Michael is entirely correct in his assessment that we have nothing to fear in this case,” Morrison told David. “However, that does not mean we have nothing to hide,” he softly. “So, tell him the truth. Just don’t tell him everything.”
“What am I not allowed to tell him?” David asked carefully. He had the feeling he was stepping into a minefield, and he wasn’t trained for diplomatic minesweeping.
“No details about your team,” Morrison said flatly. “He knows O’Brien is your team Commander, but do not mention anything about any other member of your team. Mention nothing about your training, or the Campus, or the Louisiana base. Even the location you took off from is irrelevant and classified.”
“So…” David considered, and trailed off as the elevator came to a halt. Morrison laid one delicate finger on the Close Doors button before the doors could open, and raised an expressive old eyebrow at him. “Tell him what happened in the church,” David summarized quietly and somewhat uncomfortably. “Tell him what we found there and about Carderone. Nothing else about ONSET?”
“Exactly,” the Director said in a satisfied voice. “Tell him the truth about what’s relevant—and don’t give him anything that isn’t relevant. It’s more important than you might think,” he added.
The old man released the button and the elevator door slid open. “Monsignor Rodriguez is in room 1612,” he instructed. “That’s to your right and down at the end of the corridor. Go!” he barked.
David left the elevator and allowed its doors to close on Director Morrison before he let loose a sigh of relief. He had never liked even office politics, and this was way over his head.
A quick glance down the blue-carpeted corridor spotted the number 1612 on a gold number plate on one of the brown wooden doors lining the wood-paneled hallway.
Time to go face the Hound of God.
#
The room on the other side of the door was plainly decorated. There were no shelves or wall ornaments to conceal the two cameras mounted up by the ceiling, but carved wooden pillars marked each corner. A long wooden conference table and a dozen black leather chairs were the only furniture.
A single man occupied the room, and he rose to his feet as David entered. He wore a black cassock, closed with a row of dark mahogany buttons running from the high collar at his neck most of the way to where the robe’s hem brushed the ground.
“Agent White, I presume?” he greeted David in a heavy Italian accent while proffering his hand.
“I am,” David confirmed as he took the man’s hand. “You are Monsignor Rodriguez?”
The priest nodded calmly as they shook, and David was taken aback by how small the man appeared. He was a good inch shorter than David’s own five four and lacked the breadth that made people assume the agent was taller. The man’s fair hair and laugh-lined face gave an impression of cheerful humor, but his eyes told a very different story.
Rodriguez’s eyes were a blue so cold, David almost shivered as he crossed gazes with the man, and even the low level of Sight David had active revealed an aura that had been perfectly regimented and controlled. David was used to auras revealing much about a man, but this priest’s aura revealed nothing.
Despite his small stature, the priest terrified David. He tried very hard not to let that show as he held Rodriguez’s gaze.
“Please, Agent White, take a seat,” the priest said softly. “This is not an interrogation, simply an interview.”
David nodded and took the proffered chair. Rodriguez remained standing, walking slowly and silently around the table to look at David over it. For a moment, the silence in the room was eerie, and David’s Empowered senses tingled.
He drew on his Second Sight to study the priest, and turned his gaze on the other man. He blinked in astonishment as he realized the source of the tingle in his senses: the priest was turning the full power of a Sight as strong as his own on him.
For an eternal moment, the two men looked deep into each other’s souls. Rodriguez’s control only concealed so much and revealed in its existence almost as much as it concealed. The priest’s aura showed a firm determination, as well as an honesty and honor that could be bent but never broken; and a stubbornness to rival David’s own.
Finally, Rodriguez blinked and released his Sight. Quietly, without comment, David released his, and the two men’s gazes met with normal eyes.
“You are an exceptional man, David White,” the Monsignor said finally. “I find your Omicron branch tends to underestimate strong perceivers. Mother Church requires abilities such as mine and yours to be a Papal Investigator.
“Knowing your abilities makes this easier,” he continued. “I can be more confident that there was no error in judgment when the man who judged can see souls.”
“I appreciate the confidence,” David said carefully, surprised at the open expression of it by this extraordinarily powerful man.
“Now, understand that I have reviewed your OSPI’s evidence file and the reports that were filed on this incident—with what I presume was adequate censoring, given the liberal use of black marker,” Rodriguez said dryly. “What I want from you is what you remember of the event itself—what you saw and heard before Carderone attacked, how the fight progressed, and how he died.”
David paused for a moment, marshaling his recollections of that church into a coherent framework, and then began to retell the events. He gave as much detail as he could remember, and more as Rodriguez used careful questions to bring up things he hadn’t considered.
The Investigator never sat during the entire ten minutes that David spoke. Still, he barely moved, standing on the other side of the table like a black-clad statue. Finally, when David had finished speaking, Rodriguez relaxed slightly and sat in the chair opposite David.
“Thank you, Agent White,” he said softly. “Reports only tell me so much—and it’s far easier to lie on paper than in person to someone like us. I can guarantee”—a flash of harshness crept into his voice now—“that the Church will accept your actions as justified and necessary. Carderone was a monster, and the Church should have dealt with him ourselves. It was our failure, not yours, that led to the entirely unnecessary death of your Inspector Riesling.”
David managed not to openly sigh in relief, but he knew that it was a waste of effort. While Rodriguez’s control of his aura prevented easy betrayal of his emotions, David had no such control.
His statement finished, Rodriguez shuffled through the papers on the conference table and removed a familiar red-leather photo album, marked with its black metal sun.
“You found this, I understand?” he asked.
“Yes,” David confirmed. His gaze was now riveted to the sun, which he’d seen duplicated in his hometown bar. What did it mean?
“Do you know what the sun means?” the priest asked, echoing David’s thoughts.
“No,” David admitted. “I’ve seen it elsewhere,” he said slowly, “but I have no idea what it means.”
“It’s a symbol of the Antichrist, among other things,” Rodriguez said softly. “Whatever its meanings, it shouldn’t have been in a Catholic church. I suspect its presence may help reveal why the Ordo Longinus missed Carderone. You said you saw it somewhere else?”
David hesitated. He wasn’t sure he wanted this man, this small unassuming man who utterly terrified him, digging into Charlesville. On the other hand, he was pretty sure the Monsignor had no real authority outside the Catholic Church. This might not stop him, but…
“I saw a similar decoration in a bar in my hometown,” he finally admitted. “It…stank of evil almost as badly as the one on that book.”
“That makes no sense,” Rodriguez replied in a mutter that David wasn’t entirely sure he wa
s meant to hear. For a few long moments, the two men sat in silence, both of their eyes drawn toward and repelled from the evil emanating from the black sun to their Sight.
“But that is my problem now,” the Monsignor finally sighed, looking up at David. His voice was soft, but his eyes were ice-cold again and David really did shiver this time. “The Ordo should have found Carderone. They failed. You did your job in stopping him. Now it’s my turn to find out why you had to,” he finished grimly.
The Catholic Priest rose to his feet and offered his hand. “Thank you, Agent White. I now have my own investigation to launch, but I doubt I will need ONSET’s help in the future.”
“Thank you, Monsignor,” David replied shaking the proffered hand. “But if the Order is corrupted, will you be safe?” Even though the man scared him, he could tell that Rodriguez was an ally—a powerful one—for Omicron in keeping the peace.
“I am the voice and hand of the Pope, the Vicar of God on Earth,” the Monsignor said softly. “No Catholic will lay a hand upon me. Besides,” he finished, his voice still equally soft and cold, but something different in his aura, “no one expects the Papal Inquisition.”
David was still blinking at the unexpected joke as the Inquisitor calmly walked out of the room.
Chapter 19
David remained in the conference room for several minutes after Rodriguez left. The interview had taken less than half an hour, but it had left him shaken. For all that the priest seemed to be on the same side as ONSET, he’d still been unnerving to deal with.
No one had given David any instructions for when the interview was over, so he eventually decided to head down to reception and check to see if they had any instructions for him.
He’d barely made it out of the door before a familiar voice shouted down the corridor, “Hey, David!”
ONSET: To Serve and Protect Page 17
