by Petra Landon
“Yes.”
“You mean to bring him to justice?”
“We do.”
“Good” she said simply, walking back to where Tasia and Hawk were watching them, much like the others in the Pack Room.
Raoul turned to Tasia. “I have something for you” he said, gesturing at the Alpha’s Room.
Tasia excused herself to follow him into the Alpha’s Room. Inside, Duncan and Jason were engaged in discussion. Jason came forward immediately to inquire after her. The Alpha busied himself at his desk, plugging in a USB stick into the laptop he had open.
When Tasia glanced at him, he invited her over. The desk was enormous and the chair too tall for her. He helped adjust it before holding out a set of wireless Bose headphones.
“Footage from the cage” he said briefly, pointing at the screen. “The headphones have noise cancellation.”
On the screen, a video application seemed primed to start. The headphones, like everything else of his, were too big for her, and required adjustment before she was ready. He waited patiently until she gave him a nod.
Tasia started the video stream and he moved away. There was about forty-five minutes of footage, starting a few minutes before Tasia regained consciousness in the cage. Though the room had been dimly lit, the video stream itself was clear, in high resolution, and of good quality. Tasia watched, the images taking her back to the night. She could almost taste her terror and the volatile combination of fear, confusion, shock and paralysis in the initial moments of waking up. Engrossed, Tasia missed the new arrivals — first, Atsá and Maartje, walking in to join the discussion in progress, and later Roman Durovic, arrived post haste to confer with the Alpha.
Roman, alerted by something in the Alpha’s voice during their last call, had made good time. He found an unusually somber Lair with palpable tension in the air. A grave Sienna greeted him in the Pack Room and Luis Beltran ushered him post haste into the Alpha’s Room. The room was unusually full. At the far end, by the couches, he noted Jason, Atsá, Duncan, Maartje and the Alpha. To his surprise, Tasia was seated in the Alpha’s chair, headphones on, her rapt attention on the laptop before her.
Raoul came forward to greet him.
“I come bearing news, Merceau.” Roman’s eyes wandered over the unusually sober crowd in the room. “But I suspect that your news is more important.”
Luis moved away to join the others while the Alpha gave Roman Durovic a rundown of the sequence of events from a dark night in San Francisco. In a clinical retelling, Raoul gave him the facts they knew so far. Roman went silent, speechless and stupefied by what he was being told. This was not what he’d expected when hotfooting it back to San Francisco. His eyes wandered absently to the Wizard engrossed with the laptop.
“It’s the footage Duncan recovered” the Alpha explained, his voice expressionless.
“My God, Merceau, I had no idea!” the Ancient said blindly.
This was horrible, a cruel and inhumane assault. Who would do this, and to such a powerful Alpha? It made absolutely no sense. Raoul Merceau was not your average Shifter. With the assault, the perpetrators had invited a civil war with the Shifters, not just Merceau’s Pack but every Wyr out there. No Wyr would remain silent at this atrocity.
“Do you know who did it?” he asked numbly. Who would be stupid enough to start a war with the Wyrs, he wondered. “Is it Lady Bethesda?”
Was she crazy enough to take the fight to the Wyrs? Taking out the Alpha, or even discrediting him before other Chosen, would stymie the investigation that had made huge strides in unravelling her past.
“Not directly, no, though we’ve reason to believe that Bianchi helped hatch it. The one to give the orders was a Guardian.”
“Guardian” Roman muttered. What was going on with the GCW, he wondered. For all the talk of dysfunction and the breaking down of the relationship between the two centers of Wizard power, Roman had not expected a Guardian to attempt something this reckless. This was a disaster of epic proportions for the Wizards. The Wyrs would not forgive this, and rightly so. Regardless of how it ultimately went down, any war between the Wizards and Wyrs would engulf all Chosen, including the First Ones.
Roman girded himself. He sensed that they stood close to the edge of a precipice. He would lead the Setik in the Americas one day, he reminded himself. It was time to step up and guide the warring parties carefully away from the precipice. After he’d accomplished that, he was determined to shock some sense into the Guardians.
“Why come after you, Merceau?” he asked.
Clearly, this been directed at the Wyr, though the second victim arguably faced a more horrendous fate. Roman knew that Bianchi would love to have the Alpha out of his way. It would allow the Vampire to get to Sienna. So, Bianchi’s motives didn’t puzzle him, but the unnamed Guardian’s did.
“Revenge” Raoul said grimly. “I humiliated him publicly and he wants payback.”
“Payback” Roman whispered, appalled anew by the way the Wizard had gone about his revenge.
For the first time, Roman could appreciate why generations of Wyrs had caviled and continued to do so about their treatment at the hands of Wizards. How could exposing a Shifter to silver with the singular goal of causing him to savage a fellow prisoner be considered payback in any civilized society?
His eyes wandered to Jason LaRue, deep in conversation with the Shifters. Given what he knew, Sienna and Jason’s presence at the Lair was very significant.
“LaRue is helping us build an airtight case against the Guardian.” The Alpha had not missed Durovic’s glance at Jason. “The Guardian also had some local Wizard assistance. David Hamilton is helping us unravel that.”
“So, the First Wizard knows?” Durovic muttered thoughtfully.
“Yes.”
“Does she have the power to bring this Guardian to justice?”
“No.” Raoul shook his head. “I don’t intend to leave it to the Wizards this time. They had their chance, and they chose to let him go.
Roman couldn’t disagree with the Alpha. The GCW and the First Wizard should have punished the Guardian then. Now, the enraged Shifters would give no inch.
“What will you do?” he asked.
“Once we have proof, Anderson will pay, even if I have to fight the GCW.”
There was going to be war, as he had suspected, Roman realized. But not one where the Wizards would be united. Jason LaRue and David Hamilton, two prominent Wizards at the federal and local level, already seemed to be on the Alpha’s side.
“David and DiZeyla have asked to be included in the delegation to San Diego” the Alpha told him. “They believe their presence will prevent it from degenerating into a turf battle between Wizards and Shifters.”
Good, Roman mused. He had allies. This was about justice and preventing a Chosen civil war, not about a turf battle between factions.
“For what it’s worth, Merceau, it’s not a bad idea to involve the larger Chosen community in the quest for justice. Others will stand by your side — they’ll feel the same shock and revulsion I do when they hear about this.
“And, if you engage the Wizards on your own, it might destabilize them even more” Roman warned.
“I don’t give a fuck about destabilizing the Wizards.” Raoul’s voice was grim.
“I get it, Merceau, but I know you give a fuck about the Chosen. Any fight between Shifters and Wizards will spill over into the larger community, sooner than later. You know that.”
Raoul sighed silently, knowing that Durovic had a point.
“I’m not asking you to let the Guardian go free to keep the peace, Merceau” Durovic reiterated. “But at least, let’s make sure your fight with the Guardian doesn’t engulf all Chosen.”
Raoul nodded. It seemed to satisfy Roman.
“You’re headed to San Diego once you have the evidence, right?” the Ancient asked.
“Yes.”
“I’d like to join you, too. It’s time the GCW is told unequivoc
ally that if they don’t start cleaning up their shit, others will step in to do so. I didn’t realize things were this bad in San Diego. A GCW implosion has consequences for us all.”
Roman paused as a thought struck him. “TorElnor needs to know. He’s heard the rumors of trouble in San Diego, but not the extent. May I share this with him?”
Raoul hesitated. He hadn’t made the decision to go public yet, and he didn’t want to involve TorElnor if he decided ultimately to tackle this in-house.
“If the GCW proves recalcitrant, a show of support will not go amiss, Merceau” Roman reminded him. “An array of influential First Ones on your side might make some Guardians think twice about defending their comrade. Think of this as a strategy inspired by what you did so successfully by teaming up with DiZeyla and David when his daughter was taken by the Blutsaugers.” The last was added with a persuasive smile.
Raoul’s lips quirked. “Why would I object to you learning from the best, Durovic?” The expression in the gold eyes belayed the arrogant statement.
“I’ll ask TorElnor to keep this quiet” Roman persisted.
Raoul gave in. “I haven’t made the decision to go public” he reminded the Ancient. “And Faoladh hasn’t been told yet.”
“Understood” Roman acknowledged, as Jason came forward.
“Willard Trent is now in the custody of the First Wizard’s team” the Wizard informed them. “And my sources tell me that Anderson has barricaded himself in Wizard Headquarters.”
“He knows about Trent?” Raoul asked.
“That’s my guess. He’s battening down the hatches.”
“Good. It suggests that Trent can tie him to this.”
Before he could say more, Raoul’s cell pinged. He shot the two men with him a glance before accepting the call.
“Faoladh” he greeted the foremost Alpha of them all.
“Is everything alright, Raoul?”
Raoul sighed. He had just run out of time. He’d known that Faoladh would get a whiff soon enough. His Shifters had been all over the city, chasing down leads furiously, and Faoladh ran an excellent network of spies all over the world, who kept him fed with a steady diet of information.
“What have you heard, Faoladh?” he asked, playing for time.
“Not much” Faoladh remarked, a tad amused. “It’s all over town that your Shifters were running amuck in San Francisco this weekend, and that it might have something to do with you and Wizards. Now, I’m not a man to believe all I hear, but given the tight ship you run, Raoul, I thought I’d check with you.”
“You’ve pre-empted me by a couple of hours.”
There was a short silence as Faoladh digested the news.
“Is it bad, Raoul?” he inquired.
“Yes, it’s bad.”
“When I do find out?” Faoladh’s voice was sober.
“A couple of hours. There’s something I need to check on first, Faoladh.”
“All right. Watch your step, Raoul” Faoladh signed off.
Raoul turned to the others who had been listening in on his conversation. Only Tasia ignored them, still engrossed by the laptop. She wasn’t done yet. He turned to the Ancient.
“You have news for me, Durovic?”
Roman smiled, an air of suppressed excitement about him. “You asked me to look into artifacts in First Ones custody. To see if anything went missing twenty-four years ago.”
“Yes, anything that Lady Bethesda could use to escape the Chicago explosion.”
“I have the very thing.”
“What?” Jason inquired, his interest piqued, like the others. The answer would help them solve another critical piece of the overall Lady Bethesda puzzle.
“It’s not a what. It’s a who” Roman said.
“What do you mean?” Duncan looked curious.
“Does the name ElDarZin ring a bell?” Roman glanced around the room. The others looked blank, even Atsá and Duncan.
“A First One?” Duncan inquired perceptively.
Roman nodded. “With an unusual power — the ability to bottle his magic.”
“Like Sinotar’s Scepter?” Jason prompted.
“Not quite. The Scepter allows a Chosen to store his magic, but the stored magic is inherently inactive. ElDarZin’s bottled magic was live.”
“The bottled magic could be deployed, as is?” Duncan’s voice was thoughtful.
“Yes, by someone who knows how to work magic, of course. Think of his bottled magic as the equivalent of a powerful artifact.”
“You think Lady Bethesda used ElDarZin’s bottled magic to escape the explosion?” the Alpha asked.
“It would provide an alternative to her depleted power. She could use it to build herself a magic armor, or something else to protect herself against the explosion.”
“She’d need a lot of bottled magic to build any kind of defense against that explosion” Atsá reminded them.
“ElDarZin was powerful. He had a lot of power in him.”
Roman paused. “Whether he’d agree to give it to her is another matter altogether.”
“And why?” Duncan chimed in.
“Yes.”
“How did you narrow on him, Durovic?” the Alpha asked. From an artifact to a Magick was quite a leap.
Roman pursed his lips. “Over the years, there have been rumors of ElDarZin working on an artifact to enable a Chosen to bottle his powers live. The old rumors are what made me take a look at him.”
“The Holy Grail?” Atsá murmured knowledgeably.
“Yes” Roman admitted. “You’ve heard of it, Atsá?”
“The whispers have been in the air for centuries, Roman. But the Navajo assumed it was a myth.”
“I’ve found nothing to suggest that it isn’t a myth” Roman agreed easily. He glanced around him. Duncan looked thoughtful, but the others seemed all at sea.
“The First Ones have long believed in a powerful artifact, left behind by the Forebearers, the ones who created us” Roman explained. “Many, like Atsá, think it is a myth. But some believe that it is real and was hidden by our ancestors to keep it safe for a rainy day.”
“Rainy day?” Jason looked puzzled.
“If the day ever comes when the Chosen are in danger of dying out, of becoming extinct as a species.” It was Duncan who answered Jason’s query.
Raoul frowned. Any artifact capable of propagating or creating Magick bloodlines was a deadly weapon that would wreak havoc in the wrong hands. If it did exist, no wonder their Chosen ancestors had buried it where no one could find it. A Chosen’s powers came from his blood — he was born a Magick, his powers derived from his heritage. Nothing they knew of could gift new powers to create Magicks. Only once in their history had new Magicks been created. It had led to much soul-searching and many changes. The Clan had been created thus, the result of an experiment by a feckless Chosen. Unlike other Chosen, the Vampires possessed the ability to create disciples to join the Clan — another reason why many Chosen considered them an abomination, and not brethren. But even this deviation in the Vampires’ ability had been mitigated by nature. Or perhaps, mitigated by their Chosen forebearers in their far-seeing wisdom, Raoul mused. A Vampire’s singular power was the ability to be hard to kill, his other magic insignificant when compared to fellow Magicks. And, immortality was not a significant power, by Chosen standards. Most Magicks lived long lifetimes.
“How would such an artifact propagate Chosen?” he asked.
“A Chosen is born with his powers. Throughout his lifetime, his magic ebbs and flows as he uses it and it regenerates. When we use our powers, we compensate for it by rebuilding that which has been used. But our blood merely tops up the reserves. It cannot give us more or new powers. The threshold of our magic, if you will, is determined at birth.”
Roman continued his explanation. “Imagine if a Chosen could bottle his magic. Over time, he’d regenerate and restore his powers. But with live bottled magic, he now has double the magic to play with. Or close
enough to double, when you take into account that no one can completely drain their magic” Roman amended. “But you get my meaning.”
“Yes” Raoul murmured thoughtfully. “And if whatever allows you to bottle live magic has no threshold, you could keep bottling it again and again, as your blood tops up your powers, to end up with exponential amounts of magic to exploit.”
“Exactly. It would create dangerous Chosen, anomalies that disturb the equilibrium of carefully constructed Chosen fabric. Theoretically, such a Chosen would be unstoppable, even by his peers banding together to stop him.”
The Supreme Edict was enforced by a Chosen’s peers. If a Chosen could not be stopped by the combined powers of his peers, there would be no way to enforce it. And that would set the Chosen on a dangerous path.
“Isn’t that what Lady Bethesda has effectively done with the Scepter?” Luis asked. “If she succeeds in incorporating her magic back, she’ll double her powers, assuming they’ve regenerated in the quarter century since she depleted it.”
“No, Luis.” Atsá shook his head. “Like Roman explained, her stored magic is not live. Since it is inactive, it cannot be used. It becomes live only when restored to the Chosen it originally came from. When Lady Bethesda restores it, her body will cap her magic. She remains as powerful as she ever was, but she gains nothing else.”
“Precisely, Atsá” Roman seconded him. “The Holy Grail is purported to create live bottled magic, much like ElDarZin’s ability. Theoretically, this bottled magic can be called upon by any Chosen, as if it were his own power.”
“Would that not make ElDarZin dangerous, much like the Holy Grail?”
“He was tested by the Elders when he first came into his powers. ElDarZin’s ability, unlike the mythical Holy Grail, is not unlimited. He could bottle a mere fraction of his magic, and only when he was at full power himself. So, theoretically, he might be able to build up a huge stockpile of power, but it would take him thousands of years to do so.”
“But he certainly had the power to bottle enough to help Lady B walk away from Chicago” Roman reiterated.
