“Ordinarily, I would say they were using some sort of masking technology, but that doesn’t hold water since the assassin that Sara confronted in Paris and in Hamburg had the same face both times,” Simon said. “She could see him, and her camera could pick him up—that was an independent camera on our private satellite network. But official cameras, going through ordinary cell towers, nada.”
Brody stiffened and glanced hard at Simon. This at least was something he could understand.
“You mean to tell me that the Shadow Court has its hooks into global communications companies and international law enforcement? And nobody realizes it?”
Simon nodded, positively giddy. “The code isn’t as intrusive as you might think, and keep in mind, they don’t have to use it for a lot of people. Basically, it’s sort of a reverse facial recognition protocol. Everybody gets fed into the system except for these, what, thirty, fifty, a hundred operatives. Anytime they show up, they don’t get recognized on the feed.”
“Their whole bodies or just their faces?” Brody pressed. “Because if one of them is attacking someone else, do you just get the person who gets knocked down, or do you see anything of the aggressor?”
“Excellent question, my man.” Simon finger-gunned him approvingly. “You definitely get the body and you get a face, but it’s a synthesis of all the faces in the room. An overlay you don’t even really see is happening unless you look really close, and it doesn’t happen a lot regardless, because most of the time, these guys are good at keeping their heads down and away from any likely camera angles. They’re careful, but on top of being careful, they’ve got a lot of help.”
“And you found no evidence of a man who spoke with me,” Viktor said. His voice set my nerves on edge. Did he sound anxious? Accusing? Relieved? Once again, which Viktor and which story was I supposed to focus on?
“Negatory,” Simon said. “You were in the public part of the casino, where there was only traditional surveillance, so we got nothing. Like you called it, they were ghosts in the machine. I didn’t even pick up when their eyes did that white-out thing.”
That caught my attention. I turned to Viktor, forcing myself to focus on him as if he wasn’t a traitor in our midst. It was the only way this was going to work. “Their eyes went white? When they spoke to you? Did their voices change too?”
I had run into a similar situation in Paris with an assailant who had clearly been controlled psychically from a distance. To my surprise, however, Viktor shook his head.
“Their eyes went white, but they didn’t speak in a different voice. Their faces remained the same, and their message did as well. They may have been transferring someone else’s message, but I didn’t get the sense that they were bystanders appropriated out of convenience. They felt like part of the organization.”
“I really hate these guys,” Nikki muttered.
Viktor leaned forward. “But you can see that we need to act. The time for standing on the sidelines is at an end. These people have a hundred-and-fifty-year head start on us infiltrating governments, multinational organizations, some of the richest families in the world—Connected or otherwise. It’s well past time that the Arcana Council go to war with them. Or there will be no magic left to balance.”
“What about the Houses of Magic?” Brody asked, referring to the four mortal organizations of magic loosely affiliated with the Arcana Council, one of which I’d briefly led. Swords, Cups, Wands, Pentacles, each organization had been founded to give mortals a chance to combine their magic against the Council, against any magical threat, if the situation ever demanded it. “Isn’t that their whole point, to fight their own battles?”
It was a good question, but I already knew the answer to it. I’d gone over this a thousand times in my own mind since ascending to the Council. “The Houses of Magic may have started out as assemblies of magic, but that’s not what they are now,” I said. “Over the centuries, they’ve primarily become syndicates that enrich themselves on the arcane black market, either buying and selling psychically enhanced goods or simply using their abilities to interact with non-Connected markets. Some of them, like the House of Wands, could fight tomorrow. The House of Swords as well. But Cups and Pentacles? No. And none of them are staffed with enough true psychic power to make much of a difference in an all-out war against an organized opponent. That’s why the Shadow Court hasn’t gone after them yet. They don’t need to. They’re going for more dangerous, more hidden prey. The kind of psychics who would never be caught dead joining a House, even if they should.”
“Justice Wilde has put it most succinctly,” the Magician conceded. “The ancient families of magic have started reaching out to us, but make no mistake, they will not wait for our aid for long. And despite their innate magical strength, they aren’t prepared to face this challenge. They haven’t been tested in centuries—millennia, in some cases. We can’t allow them to be compromised.”
“They will not be compromised,” the Devil agreed. “But our efforts on their behalf must be elegantly executed. This is not the time for a blunt show of force.”
At the head of the table, Alexander Kreios sat at his ease, with his fingers steepled. He regarded Viktor for a long moment, and once again, I was thrown back into confusion over what had truly happened between Viktor and the agents who visited him. Eshe had returned to appearing more or less normal, the fugue of her oracular trance fading away. But the oracle of the ancients was notoriously inscrutable. She had given us two answers. Which was the right one? Or was Viktor’s truth something else again?
And why had he been in Memphis?
Kreios continued. “For the duration of this crisis, this task force gathered here will operate separately from the Council as a whole. The strength of the Council will remain, no matter what happens to us. In the event that we don’t succeed and don’t return to our former strength, Death will take leadership of the Council.”
I blinked. “She agreed to that?”
The Devil smiled. “She did not. But she will have no choice if it becomes necessary. However, her parting words on the subject were succinct. She expects us not to fail.”
“Oh, we are totally not going to fail,” Simon said. His eyes were bright, his knees bouncing. “It’s like, completely not an option.”
“Until we eradicate the Shadow Court yet again,” Kreios said, with emphasis on the last word, “I will run the Council, the Emperor will be in charge of tactical operations, and Armaeus will be in the field as our primary agent, supported by Sara, Eshe, and Simon.”
To my surprise, Viktor didn’t seem to blink at the usurpation of his role by the Devil. What did that mean? Was he secretly happy to be in charge of tactical operations because it was better for his buddies in the Shadow Court? Or did he feel like this task force was doomed to fail and that he could do more from the middle of the pack than the head of it?
My head was starting to spin as I struggled to parse it all out. I felt eyes on me and glanced over to see the Magician staring at me with an intent I couldn’t decipher because my mental barriers were locked down tight. With as much confusion as I had swirling through my brain, there was no way I was going to let myself be vulnerable to anyone on the Council trying to poke around in my gray matter. Not yet.