White Winter (The Black Year Series Book 2) (25 page)

“Thank you,” Jonas said.

“You’re welcome, sir,” he rumbled. He paused, then added, “Heard you took a shotgun blast trying to spare one of the women in Van Dyke. Appreciate that, sir.” He didn’t wait for an answer; he just headed up the ramp with the seats on his shoulder.

“What was that about?” Jonas asked Kieran.

“I’m not sure,” Kieran said, watching the other werewolf walk out the back of the room. “Hey, you mind if I park you here and head to the back? I might get a better feel for what’s going on.”

“Sure, no problem,” Jonas said. Kieran backed him into the space the werewolf had cleared and headed for the back rows. Jonas just closed his eye and focused on his breathing. Somewhere in that darkness, behind his breastbone, there was a place that didn’t hurt. He was aware more people were entering the room, finding seats, staring at the kid in the wheelchair, and part of him was bothered by that. The rest of him wondered what he looked like under all those bandages.

“Jonas?” Damien said.

“Oh, hey, sir.”

“I didn’t realize they released you from the clinic.”

“Mostly, they didn’t.”

Damien’s eyes wrinkled. “You were lucky, you know. For the rest of us, direct exposure is instant disintegration. If Frank had taken a second or two longer, you’d be dead.”

“Yeah,” Jonas said. “He has a habit of saving me.”

“You have a habit of inspiring loyalty in people,” Damien said. It wasn’t a compliment, the way he said it, more of an observation.

“So, I guess we won’t be training together anymore,” Jonas said. He was surprised at how disappointed he felt about that.

“At least while you’re healing. Alice and I have some ideas about how to make the most of your condition, once your skin grows back.”

Jonas winced. None of that sounded good.

Jonas heard Eve’s voice from his blindside. “What are you doing out of bed?” she said. He turned to look at her.

“Ms. Gallagher,” Damien said.

“Good evening, sir. Sorry; he shouldn’t be up.”

“No, he shouldn’t, but he wouldn’t be Alice and Victor’s son if he hadn’t come. And Jonas?”

“Yes, sir?”

“Get them to stick you in a vat and sleep it off. You’re not gaining anything by toughing this out.”

Jonas’ head felt like there was a stone lodged in his forehead. He wished he was in a vat now. “I’ll do that, sir.”

“Good man,” Damien said. He touched Jonas’ shoulder, then climbed the three steps to the stage and sat next to Viviane.

“Hi, Eve,” Jonas said.

“Don’t you ‘Hi, Eve,’ me,” she said, sitting in the seat next to him. “You should be resting. You scared me.”

“Did I scare the daylights out of you?”

“That’s not funny.”

He grinned. It wasn’t that funny, but it was as much defiance as he could muster against the pain he felt.

Six screens turned on behind the podium, three to each side. They were like vertical banners, except they displayed a video connection to the directors of the other branches. Captions at the bottom read Los Angeles, Chicago, Berlin, Moscow, Beijing, and Tokyo. There was also a larger, central display that showed the first slide of a presentation titled, “23 January 2014 Mass Shooting.” He could hear the noise level increasing behind him, though he couldn’t turn around.

“Everyone take your seats,” Chief Grady said over the sound system.

Conversations died down. Frank, Billy, Jim, took the seats next to Eve. “Hi, Jonas,” the priest said, touching his shoulder before sitting next to Frank. Jonas was so surprised he didn’t answer.

“He got back this afternoon,” Eve whispered.

The room went quiet. The only sound was a single set of footsteps on the stairs. Alice walked onto the stage and sat in the third chair, next to Damien and Viviane, to the left of the screens. She nodded to Chief Grady, at the podium.

Chief Grady cleared his throat. “Ladies and gentlemen, as you’ve noticed we’ve brought in a slightly larger crowd than is normal for an operation debrief.” He smiled. There were a few chuckles in the room. “I’m sure you’re all eager to hear what the Director has to say, but since last night’s events are going to have far-reaching repercussions and people will ask you questions, this is what you should know.”

A woman’s mugshot appeared on the screen. She was in her early twenties, purple streak in her hair, average looking face except for a black eye and a split lip. She also looked more muscular than most women Jonas knew, except the Macreadys, which made him suspect she was a werewolf.

“This is Heather Leigh, age 24, a native of Tottenham - that’s a poor neighborhood north of London center. We picked her up for inciting protesters, most notably during the student riots of 2010. The injuries to her face occurred when she attacked the photographer and the enforcer in charge of her arrest, Harry Mills, stepped in.”

The slide changed. Jonas stiffened. It was the black-furred werewolf he’d seen running from the bombing.

“This is a traffic camera picture of her, yesterday. She disappeared shortly after her arrest. We now think she was recruited by the Order and has been working with them ever since.”

Chief Grady listed the evidence and the investigators’ conclusions, but to Jonas, it was like he was watching it happen.

Heather’s team was careful not to set off any alarms when they broke into 910 Utica. They dropped the bags packed with explosives and ball bearings, then trashed the place so no one would spot them until it was too late. Her team left. Once they were safely back in the Van Dyke building, she broke into cold storage and walked away.

She waited in her car, near Church Avenue. She saw the cops block off the street. She saw the tactical team arrive. When Micah stopped in the doorway, she triggered the bomb.

“Her vehicle was then intercepted by Bravo team,” Grady continued. “Cellphone tower records and materials we found at the scene indicate she planned at least one more attack. For better or worse, Bravo team’s actions forced her to advance her timeline.”

Chief Grady paused. Jonas wasn’t sure if he should feel proud or guilty.

“Ms. Leigh’s team had commandeered a room on the 12th floor of 325 Blake Avenue, a public housing development known as Van Dyke. She claimed to be an Agency enforcer, and may have been accompanied by two vampires. At the time, the 12th floor was home to three werewolf packs, one of which was unregistered; Ms. Leigh threatened to report the unregistered pack if they didn’t cooperate.

“The packs themselves were well liked by both the human and supernatural community. They had agreements with slaughterhouses upstate and on Long Island, reselling low-quality cuts and offal to people at small margins.”

Her team was ready by the time she squeezed through the window on the 12th floor. They gathered as many residents as they could in the living room of apartment 12C, under the pretext of protecting them. Then they started shooting.

“These are pictures of the crime scene,” Chief Grady said.

Jonas felt tears wet the bandages on his right cheek. Over twenty people slaughtered in one room. Five in another. Men and women, old and young, two infants. The image of a teenage girl trying to cover two toddlers with her body was burned into his mind. The rounds went straight through her.

A few of the residents got suspicious and fought back. They were either killed by Leigh’s team or Jonas’; it didn’t make much difference, because both teams wore the same uniforms, used the same equipment, and shot the same silver-alloyed bullets. The bodies were indistinguishable.

“Once 90 percent of the residents were dead, Ms. Leigh’s team used pre-made shaped charges to blast her way down through ten floors, then exited through the side of the building. A dozen humans were killed by the explosions, debris, or gunshots. One of the enforcers from Chicago, James Huntley, then escorted them through our cordon.

“He did this knowing they’d killed six members of his home office. He escaped with the rogues; we’ve issued a kill or capture order for him.”

The room was silent. The picture of 12C was still on the screen.

“This wasn’t a robbery gone wrong. The operation was well planned, executed by trained troops using our equipment. Within minutes of Ms. Leigh’s escape, news leaked to the supernatural community that the Agency had murdered 60 civilians.”

“So far, the regular population thinks this was a terrorist attack. We’ve had reports of people not showing up for work, and the traffic out of the city was heavier than usual, but the cover story appears to be holding.”

Alice stood and nodded to Chief Grady as they traded places. She stood to the left of the podium, and said, “Fellow directors, soldiers, operators, enforcers, technicians, members of the Agency, thank you for coming.”

“About 20 years ago, Victor and I trusted Marcus with the stewardship of the Agency and its mission. At some point in the past 20 years, he changed his mind about what we were trying to accomplish. He acted on his own, recruiting the young and the weak-minded, and I should have been here to stop him. I wasn’t, and I apologize.”

Jonas blinked. He’d never heard her apologize before, about anything.

“The Balance is not about surrender. It isn’t about hiding who we are, or killing other supernaturals for humanity’s benefit. Neither is it about the enslavement of humanity,” she said, looking at Frank’s team. “Our human members are in the room as evidence; you have fought beside them and they have saved your lives on more than one occasion. The Balance is a world in which humans and supernaturals can coexist.

“We have spent the last century guiding humanity’s progress toward inclusion. Toward equality. We’ve interfered in their politics, shaped their wars, and molded their fiction to our message. You’ve seen it, even if you didn’t realize it; the current generation thinks vampires are sexy, that werewolves are misunderstood, and that the undead have a right to exist, or be cured as the case may be. Globalization is erasing borders. The internet is homogenizing knowledge. Half of them think animals are people,” she said. Several people laughed. “For the undead, vampires, and any humans chosen as fledglings in the next decades, you will live to see that happen. For the werewolves and humans with families, your descendants will live a better life, even if you will not.

“I want to make this clear: this is not appeasement. Once the playing field is level, supernaturals will dominate it. How can a human athlete hope to compete with a werewolf, or a human researcher with a vampire? What is a century in space to the undead? We will take humanity at large to places they haven’t imagined yet.”

She looked back at the picture on the main screen for a few seconds before continuing. “That was Victor’s dream. It isn’t mine, and maybe it isn’t yours. The picture behind me isn’t that dreadful; I’ve seen it on a hundred battlefields over the past five centuries. I promise you this: if we kill them, if we show ourselves to be the monsters they fear, it will be 1000 years before Victor’s future comes to be. There will be a war on a scale this planet has not yet seen, and while our power will be absolute, we will reign over ashes. So let’s get this over with. We can end this today and throw our lot in with the Order. Stand, if that’s the future you want; we can start by killing every human in this room.”

Stunned silence.

After almost a minute, the director of the Tokyo office said, “We stand with the Balance, Mrs. Black.”

“As do we,” said Hugh, from Los Angeles.

One by one, the other directors echoed their allegiance. Jonas wondered if she’d set it up beforehand, if she knew they’d play along or if she really would have turned on humanity. He honestly wasn’t sure.

“So be it,” Alice said. “This is the last opportunity, ladies and gentlemen. If you are opposed, or if you are unsure, walk away. Disappear, and I won’t chase you. If you’re a vampire, the vats are at your disposal. If you’re a werewolf, go home. But if you stay, and you betray the men and women who sit beside you today, I will kill you. I will send the Foundation after you, your fledglings, and your families. We lost six good men and 60 civilians yesterday. We will likely lose more, but it will not be to fratricide. Directors, clean your houses.”

“Yes, ma’am,” they said.

“You’re dismissed.”

♘

“I’m afraid that’s not going to be enough, Mrs. Black.”

“I don’t have anything else to offer at the moment, councilor. The survivors will be provided for. You saw the body cam footage; my troops’ behavior was above reproach.”

“They shot civilians!”

“Only in self-defense. The team leader was injured trying to subdue one of the victims without hurting her.”

Jonas did his best not to squirm in his seat as the two councilors looked at him. He felt like he was a prop in a play.

The two werewolves couldn’t have been more different. The one nearest him - the loud one - was as big as Phillip had been, and dressed like he’d just come in from a hunting trip. He had short hair and a five o’clock shadow, a broad, flat face, and his neck disappeared into his shoulders.

The other councilor wore an expensive charcoal suit and a mahogany shirt left open at the collar. He had prominent cheekbones and skin so dark it had bluish undertones. His facial expression was as cold as a vampire’s, except that his eyes occasionally gleamed like coals. Jonas was almost positive he was a jackal, like in his dream.