NewU Pt. 11

"I..." I just nodded and smiled weakly. "I'm glad you are okay."

She smiled and stepped back as Marco approached. His smile wasn't quite as warm and happy as it had been all the other times I had seen it. That was hardly surprising. The last time I had seen him, his face had been a mask of pure terror as he and Uri had ushered people out of the staff door of the club. The last time he had seen me, I had been systematically annihilating the Inquisitors, and neither of us bothered to make a pretense of lightening the situation. He shook my hand, "I'm pleased to see you are okay, Pete."

"Likewise," I half smiled, shaking his hand. "How are the others?"

"Most of them are okay," Marco said, turning and walking me toward the rest of the group. "A few of them were injured, five or six of them seriously. But we are hopeful they will make a full recovery in time."

"Jerry?"

"He's fine, he was thankfully unhurt."

"Rhodri? Sterling?" That was about the extent of the names I had learned at the party, at least the ones whose fates I didn't already know.

"Rhodri is okay physically, he is in shock. He and Neil were fully bonded. That is grief that cannot be adequately explained. I understand you were part-bonded with Faye, so you can imagine the grief he is suffering." Marco replied sadly

I nodded, understanding that his loss surpassed even my own. "And Sterling?"

Marco cast a look at Fiona, Fiona just shook her head. "He didn't make it out."

"I'm sorry."

Fiona smiled weakly. "Me too. He was a good man."

"They were all good men, good women, good friends," Uri's loud, thickly accented voice sounded over the group as we approached, his eyes locked firmly onto me and something approaching a snarl curling at his lips. "And now we must discuss our next steps. Welcome, Pete. Better late than never."

I clenched my jaw. "I could say the same for your backup at the party." I snapped back, leveling my gaze back at him. "Oh, wait. That was just a never. You fucking left me there."

"I came back for you, but you were already gone."

"Sure you did."

"Are you calling me a liar?" He puffed out his chest.

"A liar? No... A coward?... abso-fucking-lutely!"

"I have been fighting the inquisitors longer than you have been alive!" He bristled.

"Are you sure? I was fighting. You were running away. How many more people would have gotten out alive if you had helped me fend them off? You are the great Uri, after all."

He stepped forward challengingly, his eyes darkening. "Try it!" I barked at him, letting a wave of energy wash out around me. "Those cunts knew the party was happening, they knew we were there, and I am very fucking curious to find out how! Someone knows, and I'm wondering if that someone is you! Even If I have to go through you to get the answers I want, so be it! But make no mistake, I am going to get them!"

Uri's eyes faltered, but not at the challenge nor at the wave of power emanating from me. It was not even at the accusation. It was like I was saying aloud what he had been thinking. His eyes narrowed curiously at me before he nodded. "You are right," He said finally, taking a step back, both literally and figuratively. "We could have done more. Perhaps you and I could speak privately before you leave."

I held his gaze for a few long moments before I nodded, finally taking my eyes off Uri and looking around. Marco and Fiona had both backed a few steps away, and large crowds had gathered on the platforms overlooking the spectacle.

"Perhaps, Mr. Roberts," an elderly voice sounded from the bench, "You could show us the events of that night from your perspective." The group, Uri included, all parted as an aged-looking man, the only one who had remained seated, stood and walked toward me. "I am Thomas, Archon of the Conclave, it is an honor to meet you." He bowed slightly.

"Thomas, It is good to meet you."

"We are all eternally grateful for what you did in saving the others. I am afraid I must agree with Uri in his choice to evacuate as many people as possible. The simple, unfortunate reality is that, based on what we saw, he couldn't have done much to help. Your power is already legendary, and what you may take for granted, others just cannot do. Your actions gave him the time to get the survivors out. Staying and fighting, as noble as it may have been, would have just risked more lives. But I also share your concern about how the Inquisitors knew how to attack. I cannot bring myself to suspect a traitor in our midst, but our enemy is far better informed than we thought, and they are getting that information from somewhere. Please, show us what happened as you saw it."

I took a deep breath and nodded. Jeeves seemed to understand the mechanics of this place better than I did, and a few moments later, the 'screen' that they had all been watching changed to my view of events, starting at the point I had joined the conversation with Marco and Uri at the bar.

With a wave of his hand, Thomas grew the screen to fill the entire space above us, letting the gathered crowds see what had happened as well.

The murmurs and the gasps, the shrieks of horror as the doors exploded inwards. The applause and quiet cheers echoed around the vaulted hall as the first wave of attackers was dispatched. The gasps grew louder as the front wall of the building detonated outwards, the almost slow-motion display of what happened to the men in the parking lot had every eye drawn in rapt attention. But the gasps, the murmurs, the cheers, all of them stopped the instant that the High-Inquisitor stepped through the breach. Total fearful silence descended on the room, the only exception being the sound of my heavy breathing echoing from the screen and that slow, ominous clapping.

It was odd. In my mind, my memories, even the countless times I had gone over it in the time since. The black-haired man had flickered into the beast that had hunted me in my dreams. But this time, it didn't. It only showed the man. My view backed away from him as he stalked towards me; he brushed off the blast of energy I hurled at him to the gasps and shrieks of the crowd watching. Even Uri was watching with wide-eyed and gulping fear.

Then the astonished looks of disbelief and awe washed over every face in the crowd as the High-Inquisitor was pulverized between the pool table and the wall.

I cut the feed, so to speak, at the point I left the club. I felt no need to let them know about Charlotte.

"But... How?" Uri asked, finally breaking the shocked silence of everyone around.

"How what?" I asked in confusion.

"Nobody has ever survived a direct confrontation with a High-Inquisitor. How did you do it?"

I scrunched up my face and glanced at the point in the air that had been filled with the screen a few minutes ago. "I'm... I'm not sure what you're asking. Did you miss the part with the pool table?"

"But... They are supposed to be immune to our powers. That is how they have always come out victorious in direct confrontations," Uri was giving me the same look of total incomprehension that Marco had shown when looking up at my city walls.

"He was immune to my powers." I squinted at him, not understanding where the confusion was coming from. "I hit him with the energy blast thing, it didn't do shit. I didn't use my powers to kill him, I used a pool table."

Uri blinked for a moment. "It... it can't be that simple."

"It may be," Thomas spoke up from beside us. "Let me ask you, Pete, when you first saw the High-Inquisitor, how did you feel?"

"Frozen," I said after thinking about it. "It was like him just being there was enough to fill me with a sense of... dread."

Thomas turned back to Uri. "You said the same about your encounter in Chechnya, did you not?"

"What happened in Chechnya?" I asked.

"I... erm... I got cornered by an inquisitor hit squad, I collapsed a building on them."

"Ah"

"But that would mean..." Uri was frowning deeply, "That my powers didn't kill them; the building did."

"It also means that discounting the presence of a High-Inquisitor, based entirely on the fact you killed him, may have been premature," Thomas added. "It does seem a very subtle distinction, but..."

"Certainly a helpful one." Uri nodded. He turned back to me. "How did you overcome that... fear? When I felt it, it was almost debilitating."

"I don't know," I answered with a frown, starting to lose patience with this whole conversation. "I just, sort of... did."

Uri didn't look like he was buying it. But Thomas intervened again. "Perhaps, Pete's lack of exposure to our culture explains it.." He waited a few moments before continuing. "When you felt it, Uri, what was your first thought?"

"That it was a High-Inquisitor. How could I think anything else?"

"And a High-Inquisitor meant..." Thomas gestured for the Ukrainian to continue.

"His presence meant that..." He nodded, understanding. "I believed that the High Inquisitor was immune to my powers. It never even occurred to me to attack any other way. I just fled. Bringing down the building, to my mind, was just an effort to slow them down. When it killed them, I just assumed I had been wrong. A High-Inquisitor couldn't have been there because I couldn't have killed him. Without that knowledge, I would have fought against him as I would any other Inquisitor. It is an interesting theory, Archon."

"Yes, yes, this is all very interesting," I said finally, my patience worn thin. "Now, as I explained to those two gentlemen before letting them go at the end of the attack, I mean to hunt down every last one of them and put an end to this. I need you to tell me what you know of them or where to start."

"I understand your anger, Pete," The Archon said softly, trying his best to sound diplomatic. "But I cannot authorize any action that could..."

"Authorize?" I interrupted. "You are mistaken, Archon. I'm not asking your permission. I am letting you know what is going to happen. For the sake of being fair, I will point out that It hasn't gone unnoticed that my accusations about there being a mole within your ranks have been left conveniently unanswered. Your assistance in telling me where to look will go some way to let me believe that the Conclave's cooperation with the Inquisitors is not an endemic corruption but just one man, perhaps a small group. Standing in my way on this will just make me suspect all of you."

"We do not like to be threatened, Mr Roberts," The archon said cautiously.

"I'm heartbroken about that, can't you tell?"

"No, he is right." Marco stepped forward. "Enough is enough. All precautions were taken, and the party was held at a new location that we had never used before. There was no use of powers in any aspect of its planning, and all the members were as careful as they had always been. The Inquisitors can only track us by following the long-term, cumulative effects of our powers, not us directly. That couldn't have happened here, so how did they know? There is only one way the Inquisitors could have known about that gathering. We all know it, whether we want to speak of it or not; There is a traitor in our midst. If it were within our abilities to find out who it was without this course of action, we would have done it by now. So the only way to find out how deep this rot runs is to get that information from the Inquisitors... through force. Only then can we cut it out."

"You are talking about war." Thomas sighed.

"That's exactly what I am talking about," I confirmed impatiently.

There was a ripple of affirmative murmurs through the crowds as the Archon cast a look toward Uri. "What do you think, old friend?"

His lack of confirmation or denial about a traitor wasn't lost on me, either.

The big man was silent for a moment, a hand coming up to scratch at the tip of the tattoo peeking from beneath his collar. "My feeling is that the Inquisitors were bloodied much more severely than they were expecting during that attack. Their response is either going to be to retreat, regroup and reassess, or it is going to be to double down and attack again to reimpose their grip on power. Neither option is particularly good for us. We may not have much of a choice but to press what little advantage we have."

"I see." The Archon didn't seem enamored by the prospect of direct confrontation. He turned to face me. "Under the circumstances, I would like to offer you a preliminary position in the Black Knights. They are an ancient order tasked with defending the Conclave, but since the 18th century, that mandate has grown to the defense of all of our kind. Even those who do not wish to be part of our institution. Uri is its head, you will take your orders from him. I must stress that this does not grant automatic membership into the Conclave; it is something more akin to a field commission. But if you require our support in your... endeavor, this is its cost."

"I accept," I said with a nod.

The Archon nodded, Marco smiled a little, and Uri stepped forward. "Walk with me, Pete." He turned and, without another word to anyone in the group, walked back up towards the point at which I had entered the Conclave. Uri made sure we were out of earshot of anyone before I spun around to face me.

"I do not trust you," He said simply.

"I don't care," I answered with a shrug. "And the feeling is more than mutual."

"Hmmm... Good, there may be hope for you yet," The leader of the Black Knights nodded. "There are only two reasons the Inquisitors would attack that party. You and me. Those are the only things that set this event apart from all the others. Only a handful of very highly ranked people knew that we would both be attending, and the speed at which that attack was mounted, not to mention the size of it, rules out someone in the party informing them on the day. They would have to have known in advance. The Archon does not want to confront the possibility of a traitor, but I have suspected it for some time."

"My thoughts exactly."

"The only other way is for you to be involved. I know you are going to deny it, and we both know you are too strong for me to find out myself. Your performance here could be nothing more than a ruse to incite open conflict, the kind which we cannot win."

"Really?" I scoffed incredulously. "Were you not paying attention to the screen when I tore those shit stains apart? And how could it be me if you have been suspecting it for a while? I just got here!"

"I would not put it past the Inquisition to sacrifice ten times that number of men if it meant a final victory for them."

"Then we seem to be at a bit of an impasse," I said after holding his gaze for a few long seconds. "You don't trust me, I don't trust you. You have had a chip on your shoulder about me since we met and I honestly couldn't give a shit why. But I am going to war with those fuckers, you can either help me, or you can stand in my way and see how that works out for you. Before you ask how I plan on proceeding without your help, Marco has already told me that the Inquisitors detect the effects of our powers. I will stand in the middle of Trafalgar Square and make such a scene that they will have no choice but to deal with me. I don't care if I have to torture them in full public view, but I will get the information I need, with or without you."

Both of us stood and stared at each other for another few long moments.

"If we do this, we do this my way." He finally said. "I will give you information, and you will report your findings back to me. Only the two of us will know where you are and what you are doing, I want to limit the chances a traitor has to undermine this, and it will also build some trust between us. So you will report back ONLY to me. Not to Marco, not to the Archon, not to your parents, not to your dog, not to any other friends you have. Only me. Is that understood?"

"Fair enough."

"Malaga," He said after another pregnant pause. "During the Holy Inquisitions, the main headquarters of the order was there. It is my understanding that despite their formal break with the church, the Inquisitors still maintain a headquarters and a sizable population in the city. You should start your search in Malaga."

********

Thank you all for reading NewU chapter 11.

The next chapter will be released next week, and our hapless hero's story will continue. I hope you are enjoying reading it as much as I enjoy writing it. The next chapter of The Island will be released on Thursday. My profile is updated regularly with my release schedule.

Your ongoing and continued support has been amazing, and authors like myself thrive on the feedback we receive from our readers, I would love to hear from you in the comments.

See you soon. Stay awesome

Nova