Cabal

by David Delaney

  He must not leave this place alive.

  I figured that out.

  Kyle frowned at Elyse and said weakly, "You chose the wrong side."

  "That's where you're wrong," she said, smiling sadly. "It was never a choice, it's who I am. Who my family is."

  Kyle turned his face away from her.

  Lucy stepped out of the house and joined us, placing a small metal case that was about two feet square down next to Morgan. "I was able to disable whatever that is. I don't think we're in any imminent danger." She squatted down next to Kyle. "Where's Marcus?"

  Kyle ignored her.

  "Where's Marcus," she repeated.

  Still nothing.

  A white-hot flame appeared on Lucy's finger tip. "Where's Marcus?"

  Kyle kept his eyes fixed somewhere out in the darkness. Elyse and Maddie looked away when Lucy ran her finger over what was left of Kyle's legs. He screamed and spat, and yelled profanities, and then after a few minutes of Lucy's unyielding ministrations, he was ready to talk.

  "I don't know where he is," said Kyle through clenched teeth. "He dropped off the bomb and left."

  I tapped the robot arm. "Where'd this come from? Did Marcus give it to you?"

  Kyle scoffed. "Marcus only reappeared a couple of days ago. He joined with us, not the other way around. The information he had was priceless though. As a former member of the Society’s ruling council—"

  "What!" Lucy grabbed Kyle by the hair and twisted his head so he was looking directly at her. "Marcus was a council member? When?"

  "I don't know, a long time ago, but he knows all their dirty secrets and still has some influence with a few members."

  "You're talking about the Cabal," I said.

  Kyle laughed. "You know less than nothing, if you think we are the Cabal."

  "The arm," said Morgan, his words a bit slurred. "Your group, they created it and other technology merged with magic?"

  "Yes, the plan is to bring magic to the masses, creating a brand new, shiny world,” said Kyle. "I think I'm done now."

  Lucy re-ignited her finger. "We'll decide when you're done."

  "Go ahead, you filthy witch, torture away," said Kyle. "I've got nothing left to say.”

  "Kyle, please," Elyse began before he cut her off.

  "You don't get to talk to me, whore."

  "That's enough of that." I shifted my hand into a claw and reached for his neck.

  Elyse put her hand on my arm, stopping me. "It should be me."

  "Why?"

  "Because of our shared past," she said. "It feels like my responsibility."

  "You're sure?"

  Elyse nodded. I scooted back to give her room.

  Kyle glared at her. "I never loved you."

  A single tear rolled down her cheek. "I believe you," she said.

  Elyse shifted into beast form and removed Kyle's head from his body.

  "I'm sorry to step on this moment," said Morgan. "But we need to high-tail it out of here. The explosions, gunfire and screaming, will have drawn lots of attention. And this is Mexico—they won't send the police, they’ll send the army."

  We took the magic bomb and Kyle's magic robot arm with us. Wyatt blinked us back to the boat and we skedaddled.

  It was a quiet ride back to the marina. The battle had been intense and we had killed a lot of shifters. Of course, they had been hell-bent on killing us first, so it had been done in self defense—and yes, I even counted Kyle in that number, because he would have come after us if we let him live—but we still had to deal with a heavy emotional toll.

  Within two hours we were back on board the Gulf Stream, preparing for takeoff. Our ragged, bloodied appearance got both pilot's attention, but they were professionals and didn't ask any questions. They did offer us toiletry kits so that we could clean ourselves up.

  "Is there anything else you need?" asked the chief pilot. "We could have it delivered before we take off."

  "No, thank you," I said. "We just want to go home."

  He nodded and left us to start the preflight check.

  Once in the air, I walked back to the small, but well-stocked galley and started passing out anything edible that didn't require work to prepare. There were nuts, fruit, cheese and cookies. We also broke out the soda and alcohol. Nobody even argued with Wyatt when the kid downed a mini-bottle of tequila, he'd earned it.

  After we had sufficiently gorged ourselves, Morgan opened his backpack, pulled one of the crossbow bolts out and dropped it on the table in front of us.

  "I can't even begin to wrap my head around those," he said, indicating Kyle's robot arm and magic bomb. "So, let's start with this. A simple, even primitive, weapon that can hurt the guy who isn't supposed to be able to be hurt."

  "I'm not indestructible," I said.

  "No, but you're pretty damn close," said Lucy.

  Morgan held the bolt up to the light, scrutinizing its deadly tip. "This looks like it’s coated with some kind of hard, black substance. Could it be some kind of poison?"

  I held out my hand and Morgan passed it over. The black coating was obvious when you knew to look for it.

  “It almost looks like bone," I said and then realization hit. "Lucy, your daggers. I think this is the same stuff your blades are made from."

  Lucy pulled a dagger from her back sheath, holding it close to the arrow tip. We all leaned in close to get a better look. The black of Lucy's blade and the black-tipped bolt both gleamed in the light.

  "It looks like a match to me," said Morgan.

  "This actually makes sense," said Elyse. "Those daggers are one of only two things that have ever hurt Orson."

  "Two?" said Morgan. "What's the other thing?"

  I closed my eyes and rested my head back. "The talons of the blood-mage we battled at Stanford last week. He almost gutted me like a fish."

  "Well, this sucks," said Wyatt. "Somebody has been busy making Ollphiest-killing weapons."

  "Which means we were being observed during the events at Stanford," I said to Lucy.

  "Or tested," she said. "Maybe it was all a set up to probe for weaknesses?"

  "But you guys were there for me," said Maddie. "And I can tell you unequivocally, I'm not one of the bad guys."

  "No, you're not," said Lucy. "But your car accident and how you healed your friends, it led us straight to the campus. Where someone—the Cabal, Marcus, whoever Kyle was working with—were waiting."

  "Do you think Jimmy, Dahlia and that gypsy witch blood-mage woman were involved?" Maddie asked. "Because it doesn't seem likely."

  "I think you're right," I said. "The revelation that magic was real blew Jimmy's mind and sent him over the edge, and you can't fake that kind of crazy. No, you, Jimmy, Dahlia and even the blood-mage were the perfect cover for whoever orchestrated the portals and the rest."

  Maddie frowned. “I thought the portals were caused by the love spell ricocheting off of me and going haywire?”

  “Oh, that definitely helped,” said Lucy. “But, with this new information, it would seem the portals where planned.”

  “By who?” Elyse asked.

  Lucy snapped her fingers. "The ogres and the hedge-witch."

  Morgan's mouth dropped open. "I'm sorry, my ears are still ringing from all of the explosions and gunfire. Did you just say ogres?"

  "Yes, and I'll explain later," said Lucy.

  "It’s a weird world, dude," Wyatt whispered out of the side of his mouth to Morgan.

  Lucy said, "The ogres had a route mapped out to Stanford and that stinky hedge-witch was on campus waiting . . ."

  "For something big to go down," I finished for her. "How did he describe it again?"

  "Something about a super-convergence and twelve arcane elders," said Lucy.

  "A super what and twelve who?" Wyatt asked. He'd been working with Lucy for over a year, and he had a better grasp of the Society's ins and outs than any of us except for Elyse, so he knew BS when he heard it.

  "Hedge-witch mumbo-jumbo," s
aid Lucy. "But he did know something was going to happen. Word had gotten out that someone powerful was about to make themselves known."

  "Marcus?" said Maddie.

  "I don't think so," I said. "He was supposedly dead until we pulled him out of Lucy's overactive memory."

  "But maybe he wasn't," said Elyse. "Kyle told us that Marcus, at some point in time, had been on the ruling council of the Society. Maybe he was in hiding?"

  "Thirty years is a long time to wait," said Morgan. "My outsider's perspective on all this is that Kyle represented a third group, one that's been lurking in the shadows this whole time.”

  "The blood-mage who came through the last portal that night at Stanford," Elyse said to me. "We accused him of being in the Cabal, but he never confirmed it. He just started hollering about how we were all going to die."

  I thought back on our short conversation with that butthole. Elyse was right, he never confessed to being a card-carrying member of the Cabal, we had just assumed. I sighed and nodded. "You're right, we just jumped to what seemed the obvious conclusion. He must have been aligned with Kyle."

  "Oh man," Wyatt said, pressing his hands against the side of his head. "I'm starting to get secret society overload—the Cabal, now Kyle's gang, and of course the grand-daddy of them all the Society itself. Where does it end?"

  "That's the problem with organizations or governments thinking they know better than the rest of us," said Morgan. "The belief that they need to keep us safe from ourselves. Secrets breed mistrust, which leads to keeping more secrets, which eventually leads to where we are right now."

  "And where is that?" Wyatt asked.

  "War," I said.

  Morgan nodded. "Bingo. It may be undeclared and being fought out of the view of the public, but we are at war. The question is, which side are we fighting for? And is it the right side?"

  The co-pilot came over the intercom. "I have an incoming call for you guys."

  Maddie hit the speaker button. It was Piper and she didn't sound happy.

  "I've been worried out of my mind over here. The pilots had to buzz me to tell me you were on your way back. They said you look awful but are mostly in one piece?"

  "Sorry, Piper," said Elyse. "It's been a long night. And yes, we're all good."

  "Well, I’m sorry to have to add to the burden, but you need to turn on the TV.”

  I could see the same confusion I was feeling on the faces of my friends.

  "Hold on," said Maddie. "I'll find the remote."

  "Is there a particular channel we should tune to?" Lucy asked.

  "No, it's on all the channels."

  Uh oh.

  Maddie found the remote and clicked the TV on. It took a moment for the receiver to pick up the signal from the satellite. When the picture finally resolved, I couldn't believe what I was looking at.

  The fancy downtown building that housed the Paragon Society headquarters was a smoldering ruin. There was nothing left. It looked like news footage from 9/11 after the Towers collapsed, an enormous pile of debris with emergency personnel swarming the sight looking for survivors.

  Lucy walked up to stand in front of the screen, her hands clenched in fists. “It’s impossible."

  The news reports were still sketchy. All that was known so far was that a massive explosion had taken place and that authorities had not ruled out terrorism. The most important thing, stressed the reporter, was the ongoing search for survivors.

  "What happens now," I asked.

  "I don't know," said Lucy. "I don't think there's even a procedure for the total destruction of HQ. And we don't know how many people were in there when it happened. If the ruling council was in session . . ."

  "It's the middle of the night," Maddie pointed out.

  "That doesn't matter. With us on the run and Marcus back from the dead, there's a really good chance they could've been in the building.”

  "If they're all dead,” Piper's voice crackled over the speaker. "Or even if most of them are dead, there will be chaos."

  Lucy rubbed her eyes. "Piper's right. The power vacuum left behind . . . there will be an epic struggle for control. This could fracture the Society."

  Morgan, who had remained silent watching the images of destruction flashing across the screen, finally spoke. "That place, the entire building was your Society's HQ?"

  "Yes," said Lucy.

  "You’re positive? They didn't rent out space to other organizations?"

  "Of course not," said Lucy. "It would've been a security risk. No non-Society people were allowed on the premises unless specifically cleared."

  Morgan looked freaked out.

  "Morgan, what's up?" I asked.

  His response made no sense. "We need to call my boss."

  "Your boss?" said Lucy. "Why?"

  Morgan pointed a finger at the TV. "Because the third floor of that building is the . . . um . . . was the LA offices of Division, the group I work for."

  The thundering silence that descended in the cabin only lasted a moment.

  "Shut your face!" Wyatt shouted.

  Chapter Twenty

  After landing back at Van Nuys, we headed straight to Piper's house. There was a debate on how we should handle Morgan's revelation that Division was just an arm of the Society.

  "I'm telling you, we need to call my boss, Mrs. White," said Morgan. "Piper can keep us anonymous, but we need information."

  "And you think she's just going to give it to you?" Lucy asked. "Whoever your boss is, she's a Paragon and she will not divulge Society secrets to a regular citizen."

  "I can't explain it," said Morgan. "But I know she's fond of me, and cares about my well-being."

  "She lies for a living, Morgan," said Lucy, exasperated. "Everyone in the Society does."

  "Really? Does that include you?"

  Lucy sighed. "If you're asking if I've lied to keep the Society secrets, then yes. If you're asking if I've lied to you, of course not. But we have a history—a relationship."

  "And I have a relationship with her also. Not on the same level as you and me, but just as real. I need you to trust me on this one. Please."

  "What do the rest of you think?" Lucy asked, as Elyse navigated the narrow canyon streets towards Piper’s house. "This should be a group decision."

  "What are our other options?" Maddie asked. "We tried calling Cynthia before and she popped a gasket. If she survived the bombing, she might be too busy to talk to us."

  "I don't think we lose anything, especially since Piper can hide our location," I said.

  "I agree with Orson," said Elyse.

  Wyatt said from the cramped third row seat, "Whatever you guys decide is cool, but I seriously need out of this tiny space."

  We pulled into Piper's driveway and before we even stopped moving, Wyatt blinked to the front door. "No more kiddie seats," he called out.

  In the twelve hours we'd been gone Piper had had her front door replaced. I scanned the house. The defensive wards were still down, but the stuff baked into the foundation was still humming.

  Ever the gracious hostess, Piper had platters of hot food and buckets of cold drinks waiting. Her big screen TV was tuned to one of the cable news stations, and it was wall-to-wall coverage of the bombing.

  "Dig in," she said. "The only new development is an unconfirmed report about the explosive used. It has the experts flummoxed, because it doesn't seem to match any type of ordinance found anywhere in the world."

  I set the magic bomb down on the coffee table. "Maybe it was one of these."

  "What is this thing?" Piper said, leaning over to inspect the bomb more closely.

  "That is a bomb created by the fusion of magic and tech," I said, dropping Kyle's robot arm on the table. "Designed by the same people who made this."

  Piper scooped the arm up. “Holy hell," she said, running her hands over the prosthetic limb. "Where did you get this?"

  "Off the body of a dead shifter," said Elyse.

  "This," Piper waved the a
rm in the air before her. "This shouldn't exist. This is next, next, next generation tech."

  "You think that's impressive?" I leaned over, sticking my finger into a small space where the arm had been attached to Kyle's shoulder. I let my aura bleed into the device and it vibrated to life.

  Piper dropped the mechanical gizmo and it clattered to the floor. "That's impossible."

  "Yeah," said Wyatt around a mouthful of food. "There's a lot of that going around."

  As the small amount of magic I had goosed it with faded, Piper reached down and picked the arm up. "There are those who would slaughter half the world to get their hands on this."

  "Yep, and they started with Society headquarters,” said Lucy.

  We filled Piper in on what went down at the villa and all we had learned. Halfway through the tale she had to sit down and pour herself a large glass of wine, which she then swallowed in one long pull.

  "Holy hell," she repeated, when we were finished.

  "We need to make another one of those super-private phone calls," said Morgan.

  Piper led us back to her computer fortress of solitude. She set the call up and pointed to Morgan when the connection was ready.

  "Everybody will be able to listen in, right?" asked Morgan.

  Piper nodded.

  "Well, here goes nothing." Morgan dialed a long string of numbers. Someone picked up after the third ring.

  "Confirm, echo-three-zulu-one-seven-one," said Morgan.

  After a moment a professional male voice said, "Confirmed, what do you need, agent?"

  "I must speak with Mrs. White immediately, emergency protocol six."

  "Confirmed, emergency protocol six."

  It sounded like the line had gone dead, but then a very familiar female voice said, "Hello, Morgan?"

  A stunned Maddie said, "Isn't that council member Ellen's voice?"

  It was Ellen all right, member of the Society's ruling council and Cynthia's right-hand.

  "Dude, you need to hang up," said Wyatt.

  Morgan was so startled by all of our shocked reactions that he forgot to speak until Lucy poked him on the shoulder.