"Lord Commander," Hunter said in a voice that, while it was over the basewide comms system, was pitched only for his ears to hear. Looking up from the blown apart image of the Nocturnum that was hovering above the war table, he looked out at the bullpen.
"Go ahead, Hunter," he replied.
"The Nighthawk carrying High Lord Giancarlo Giovanni is on final approach. Shall I notify Master Vulcrum and Night Mistress Fiadh?"
"Yes, please. And have an interrogation cell prepped."
Vulcrum was already in the cell with several of his interrogation team, jotting notes down on his ever present tablet when Lash arrived, an unconscious Giovanni slung between four of Vulcrum's tactical operators. A pointing finger at the only chair in the chamber had the four operators carefully put the stout, greasy-looking vampire there before strapping him in so he didn't fall out. Their leader then handed Lash a list of items they had taken from Giovanni's armory, including several hard drives and data vaults. A quick glance at it after thanking the commander, then Lash was handing it to an interested Vulcrum, who immediately began to enter the list into his tablet.
With Giovanni secured, Lash then sent the operators back out just as Fiadh was arriving. She carefully avoided touching any of the soldiers before stepping close to Lash to take his hand and squeeze it. She then looked at Giovanni, who now had two of Vulcrum's team going over him. It didn't take them long before they looked back at a waiting Lash and Vulcrum and nodded.
"We have approximately forty five minutes on Giovanni's original tranquilizer," Vulcrum indicated. Of his earlier acrimony, there was no sign. He was once again the even keeled, professional, and unruffled spymaster. Of course, that was due in no small part to the fact his concerns about Lash's bloodline surviving the big vampire's dangerous occupation being answered by Mara Darktower and the baby in her womb.
Hearing the timeframe she had to work with, Fiadh nodded. Then, after giving Lash's hand a final squeeze, she stepped forward and her face became a mask of concentration as she extended her pheromone cloud into the unmoving High Lord. And both Lash and Vulcrum smiled tightly in satisfaction when they saw Giovanni twitch.
"Do you hear me?" Fiadh asked.
"Yes, mistress " came the answer in the same faraway voice that Kanter had used, as if talking in his sleep.
"Are you conspiring with High Lord Joachim Narvaez to destroy Clan Ventru?"
It was a confirming question right out of the box. And nearly everybody in the room felt their faces tighten in disappointment when it generated only silence.
Glancing over at Lash and Vulcrum, Fiadh shrugged. Lash thought for a moment then brought his two index fingers together. Nodding in understanding, the Irish queen turned back to Giovanni.
"Do you know Joachim Narvaez," she then asked.
"Yes, mistress," came the faraway answer.
"Are you conspiring with him?
"Yes, mistress."
"To do what?" Fiadh pressed.
"Destroy the Queens' Conclave and break the lilith hold on power over the vampire world!"
Lash and Vulcrum exchanged looks. It was confirmation of what Sofia had revealed about Giovanni's motives. The hatred of liliths he and Narvaez shared had pushed them into conspiring to break the Queens' Conclave!
But why weaponize them? It couldn't be to just strike at the psionics that demonstrated a taste for lilith slaves.
Lash's expression abruptly tightened as another possibility occurred to him. Unless it was part of the plan to have the liliths exposed as weaponized, creating a crisis in trust across all vampiredom. If the liliths were shown as not only untrustworthy but dangerous as well, it would give strength to a call to curtail their power. Which would be a significant step towards dismantling the Conclave's power base.
And it had started with the handful they had uncovered, Narvaez making sure that if he couldn't kill Isabella and Gabriela, they would be weaponized. He had little doubt that would've been Sofia's fate as well, if Romanescu and his slavers had had just a little more time.
Lash strongly suspected that, given enough time, all the captured liliths would've also been weaponized. And not just against the psionics that would've bought them. Any party that came across the weaponized queens would've been at risk: vampires, humans, other Dark Edge races ... the list was endless.
"Did Demaskieros also want the liliths destroyed?" Fiadh asked, trying to get Giovanni to confirm the mystery vampire's involvement.
"Yes, mistress."
"Is Demaskieros a sitting member of the Council of the Night People?"
Silence greeted that question. Her brow crinkling as she reworded the question several times in her head, Lash could see Fiadh adjusting her approach.
"Does Demaskieros have an alias?"
"Yes, mistress," Giovanni replied.
"What is it?"
"Drago Topinov."
"That's Vorinov's councilor," Vulcrum indicated in a voice pitched so it didn't reach Fiadh and her target. "Vorinov triggered the pogrom!"
Lash's expression became wary. Had they really?
It was well known that the Russian-based clan wanted complete control of Europe's vampires. While Vorinov's ambition was no secret, they usually came at their target directly, meeting them face to face. That way there would be no question that their target would know it was Vorinov who defeated them. They were brash and arrogant that way.
So why would they conspire with two disenchanted Toreador High Lords to bring down the Conclave? As far as he knew, Vorinov supported the Conclave, though not to the level Ventru did. And why would they use machinations to diminish or destroy Ventru? Hundreds of years of behavior would have them come directly at Ventru and her assets instead, as they had many times in the past!
Something wasn't adding up.
Lash pulled out his smartphone. As Vulcrum and Fiadh watched, he accessed the Qos Viran hard database and brought up the dossier on Topinov.
A quick scan of the contents yielded nothing. It was the standard chest thumping drivel Vorinov politicos were known for.
It was only when he brought up an image of the Vorinov councilor that he found himself frowning. That wasn't the vampire he saw in Vorinov's chair three years ago!
"Vulcrum, do you have a current image for Topinov?" he asked, looking over at the spymaster.
Eyes narrowing at the question, Vulcrum looked down at his tablet and ran a quick search. Then he was flipping the tablet up to face the big vampire and it was Lash's turn to narrow his eyes thoughtfully at what he saw.
It was the same vampire he had seen three years ago.
"The Qos Viran hard database says it's this man!" And he turned his phone around to show Vulcrum the picture from the database.
"Well," the spymaster said with a lifted brow as he pulled back from the phone and looked at the image on his tablet. "This adds another layer to the situation!"
A gesture to his team and two stepped forward to put a sensory deprivation shroud on him like Anna wore. That done, he turned to a thoughtful Lash.
"There's an obvious play here, young master. But the nuances aren't so apparent."
"No, they're not," Lash agreed as Fiadh joined them. "The Qos Viran last verified Topinov's identity five years ago in conjunction with the VOC. So Demaskieros assumed his identity sometime between the last verification and when I was last at council."
"If the VOC still existed, they could've easily given us a report on Topinov's movements," Vulcrum indicated. "It was one of their primary tasks."
That reminded Lash of something Absinthe had said during their retrieval of Anna van Tallert.
"Maybe they did and Demaskieros had them eliminated to stay hidden," he grimly noted. "We just need to find, then hack the VOC hard database!"
Vulcrum slowly nodded as he considered Lash's suggestion.
"Not easy but do-able," he said. "All three Viseith divisions were notoriously protective of the intelligence they gathered. Almost as much as the Qos Viran is. I have worked on locating an access point for years to no avail. But once we have it, the hack should be relatively straightforward."
"I might have a solution for finding an access point. But I'll need to set a couple things up first," Lash indicated.
"If I could ask you to do that, young master, I would be very thankful," Vulcrum said. "In the meantime, it's my understanding Night Mistress Sofia is looking to be shorn from Giovanni."
He looked at the hooded High Lord.
"Considering he's admitted to being a part of a plot to destroy the Conclave, NachtFeuer should have no problem granting her the shearing."
Vulcrum looked back at Lash and Fiadh.
"I've recorded the confession. I'll transmit immediately, if you could advise your sister lilith, Mistress Fiadh."
"I can do that, Master Vulcrum," Fiadh said with a nod. "She'll be happy about the news. She is very anxious to get out of Giovanni's reach!"
"Thank you, Night Mistress" Vulcrum said, bowing his head respectfully. "Now, how are your energy levels, mistress? Can you manage another twenty minutes? I'd like to squeeze Giovanni for as much as we can get before Narvaez arrives in the next half hour."
"I can manage that," Fiadh said with a confident smile. "But how do you intend on questioning Narvaez? I'll have exhausted my cloud by then."
"Ah!" Vulcrum looked at Lash. "An excellent question. Is there another of your adjuncts or Embraced willing to fill in for our invaluable Mistress Fiadh while she recovers, young master?"
Lash looked at a thoughtful Fiadh then slowly nodded.
"I believe so," he said, looking back at Vulcrum. "Meredith should be able to use Fiadh's technique to great effect."
"Meredith would be perfect," Fiadh agreed. "I'll bring her down now so I can show her how it works during this last session." And she lifted her hand to her earpiece.
"And I'll start my project to find the access point," Lash indicated, reaching to take the hand Fiadh held out to him and gave it a squeeze as she talked to Meredith. "Keep me advised, Vulcrum."
"I will, young master," the lean spymaster said with a bow of his head.
With a final nod, Lash stepped out of the cell. After thanking the operators that now stood guard for their recent efforts, he turned and strode smartly towards the elevator. As quick as the ride up to the command center was, Lash managed to catch Meredith walking towards the elevator with the intention of going down to the brig as the door opened to let him out.
"Lash!" she exclaimed with a happy smile, picking up her pace to meet him only a few steps out of the elevator.
"Ah! My Lady Protector!" Lash said with a smile of his own. Then he was gathering her into a warm embrace, her arms wrapping snuggly around his body as she fitted herself to him.
"Mmm, I like when you wear that perfume," he murmured as he found his nose nuzzling her throat, Meredith sighing with pleasure at the sensual touch.
"Here," the blonde English lilith replied throatily as she pulled him back into the elevator. Closing the door and hitting the stop button, she turned to him and yanked her loose uniform blouse out of her pants and pulled it open. And in doing so, revealed plenty of creamy skin for his eyes to devour.
"Come and get a better sample!"
It was several minutes later that found Lash standing at the war table in the war room. In front of him hung two holographic images: the image of Topinov from five years ago, and the one from three years ago.
"Hunter, does the hard database still have input streams from VOK and VCG?" he asked as a tap of his finger on the interface brought up the same dossier Vulcrum had summoned on his tablet down in the brig.
"Affirmative, Lord Commander," the AI indicated.
"Any one-way firewalls blocking a backflow in either?"
"The VGC input stream is protected by a backflow firewall. However, the VOC stream is not."
Lash sucked in a quick breath then let it go. It had occurred to him while he was down in the cells that, if the VOC had been hit as hard as Tanis indicated it was, somebody might've left the lights one after it was all said and done. Mostly because those responsible for securing the databases and intelligence stores VOC no doubt had, were dead. And, unlike Vulcrum's operators, the Hand assassins that obliterated the VOC operatives weren't trained to gather intel and lockdown a target location before leaving. So they wouldn't have seen any access points still active.
Now, all they had to do was see if Absinthe's idea to hack the database was actually possible.
"Narcist. Are you available to come to the war room?"