“What?” Jason asked.
“You changed your clothes.”
“Nah, mate. I was always wearing this.”
Taika frowned.
“You’re a mysterious guy, bro. There’s a lot about you that doesn’t add up.”
Jason chuckled.
“Mate, you’ve got no idea.”
“When you picked a café, this wasn’t what I expected,” Jason said.
Vermillion had led him from the crowded downstairs area to a private upstairs with empty tables and a window wall looking out over the street. The décor was subdued, with hardwood floors and earthy colours.
“I own the place,” Vermillion said. “It offers comfort and convenience for private business.”
“Just give me a second to change,” Jason said, mist shrouding him to replace his bike gear with a casual winter suit. Vermillion was dressed much more casually than their last meeting, with plain slacks and a woollen sweater.
“Are you all right leaving your motorcycle on the street like that?” Vermillion asked.
“That wasn’t a motorcycle,” Jason said, but offered no further explanation. Vermillion looked out on the street and noticed that the bike was no longer where Jason had left it.
“I always envied the convenience of conjured vehicles,” Vermillion said.
“That’s a thing here?”
“Only one that I know of, here in Sydney. It’s unusual where you spent your time away?”
“Vehicles specifically, yeah, but there’s lots of magic items, magical beast riding. My mate Humphrey rides around on a shape-changing dragon.”
“A dragon?”
“It’s a baby dragon.”
They sat at a table with comfortable chairs.
“Someone will come up shortly to take our food order,” Vermillion said.
“What kind of dietary restrictions do you have?” Jason asked. “Is it a liquid diet? I don’t know a lot about vampires. The only ones I’ve met were created by a giant blood spider. We didn’t really talk, since they were trying to kill me and my friends.”
“Lesser vampires,” Vermilion said. “They were created by a giant spider? This also happened during your mysterious time away?”
“Yep,” Jason said. “It was a rough day. I mean, it was some epic stuff. Vampire monster army? But yeah, rough.”
“And where did this take place exactly?”
“Would you believe an abandoned jungle city in a pocket universe?”
“Not really.”
“Let’s just say southern Africa, then. More or less. What did my gold tell you?”
“What makes you think I have your gold?”
“I got full market price for that gold, which I shouldn’t have, given its shady origins. That means that someone higher up stepped in. It could have been Tollman, looking to make a good first impression, but he would have said something when he was trying to recruit me to his cause.”
“Why would I want it?” Vermillion asked.
“Best guess? You—or the people behind you—saw an essence user acting outside of the norm, almost like he didn’t know what was what. But how could someone like me be an independent? Where would they get the resources? Why are they doing something as petty as selling mundane gold? So you bought it and you’ve probably put it through every test you can conceive of.”
“You seem very confident,” Vermillion said.
“I do, don’t I?” Jason said with a laugh. “I’ll confess that I’m curious about what you found.”
Vermillion shook his head.
“My people are very interested in where that gold came from,” he said. “Apparently, we tried to trace the source and the results were extremely anomalous.”
“I’ll bet they were.” Jason chuckled. “Who are your people, exactly?”
“The Cabal,” Vermillion said. “I would have thought that was obvious.”
“Never heard of them,” Jason said. “I’ve been out of town.”
“The Cabal is everywhere.”
“I’ve been really far out of town,” Jason said. “I suspect your concept of everywhere is due for expansive revision.”
“Then by all means, expand my horizons,” Vermillion said.
“I can do that,” Jason said. “I’d like to get a handle on the local colour, first.”
“If you genuinely don’t know what the Cabal is,” Vermillion said, “then you certainly have some catching up to do. How much do you know?”
“Just imagine that I got sucked into an alternate universe and came back with super powers to find out there was magic hidden in my world all along.”
Vermillion raised his eyebrows.
“Hypothetically,” Jason added.
Vermillion leaned back in his chair.
“I can certainly tell you what isn’t any great secret,” Vermillion said. “To people like us anyway. To regular people, it would be the biggest secret in the world, but we’re a long way beyond regular people.”
“Vast magical power does change your perspective somewhat, doesn’t it?”
“The first thing you need to know about the magical world is that there are three dominant forces within it. There are smaller, localised groups, scrabbling after table scraps. They know about magic, but that knowledge is fragmentary at best and they have little, if any, magic they command for themselves.”
“Like our friend Victor.”
“Exactly like our friend Victor,” Vermillion agreed. “There are also some groups that orbit the larger organisations. Families that have known the truth for centuries, that kind of thing. They vary in power, directly related to their influence within the groups to which they are attached.”
“And it’s these three big groups that are the real players?”
“Exactly,” Vermillion said. “The oldest, and most reclusive, is the Cabal. I’m a member, and even my knowledge is extremely limited. Most of what I do know, I’m not allowed to share.”
“That’s fine,” Jason said. “What’s the outside perspective of your group?”
“The Cabal represents the old magic of this world. Things older than history that dwell in the dark places.”
“Like vampires,” Jason said.
“Yes. Proper vampires, not the puppets of some essence magician.”
“I’ve heard of essence users making vampires,” Jason said. “Where I’ve just been, it’s frowned upon.”
“As it is here,” Vermillion said. “These lesser vampires, running around killing people. Even putting aside the moral repugnance of murder, which I don’t think you should, it just makes things harder for those of us doing the right thing.”
“I was meaning to ask about that,” Jason said. “I’ve been wondering about your views on killing and eating people, because I take a dim view on it. Enough people have tried to kill and eat me that I don’t care for it as a practice.”
“That is the purview of lesser vampires,” Vermillion said. “They can’t feed without killing, so we put them down whenever we find them.”
“And what about you?” Jason asked. “You do drink blood, yes?”
Vermillion was about to answer when a waitress came in from downstairs. She only had one menu, which she handed to Jason.
“It’s your place,” Jason said. “What’s good?”
“Beef carpaccio,” Vermillion said without hesitation.
“Okay,” Jason said, handing back the menu without looking at it.