A sleep-deprived Annabeth Tilden was shotgunning coffee.
“More,” she demanded hoarsely as she finished, sending her assistant to replenish her supply. One of the side effects of being an essence user was an ability to resist the effects of caffeine, leading many coffee drinkers to ramp up their intake. This was bad enough at category one, but if she ascended to category two, coffee would no longer have any power to perk her up. As it was, she was adding stamina potion to each cup like shots of whisky.
Anna was not in her office but in a conference room several floors down. She was snatching a couple of minutes rest before her next meeting, annoyed that the magic in her system purged the caffeine as fast as she could imbibe it. She was slumped forward, elbows on the desk as she rubbed her temples, which did nothing to alleviate the stress headache.
The door opened to admit the Cabal representative, Vermillion. She had actually come to sympathise with the man over the course of the day, despite his organisation being the source of her current tribulations. Not only had he been caught up in it directly but, like her, he had the highest-ranking members of his organisation dropping dissatisfaction onto him from a great height. Also like her, it was his job to somehow sort the whole mess out.
The footage had become an international news story. A violent gun battle on the streets of Sydney. A mysterious figure leaping from motorcycle to motorcycle amidst a hail of bullets, taking on a notorious biker gang by the dozen before vanishing without a trace. There were countless bizarre details, all of which were being overanalysed by media organisations around the world at that very moment.
Why did the rider seem impervious to bullets? Was his strange outfit some kind of body armour? What was the large, intimidating motorcycle he was riding? It was powerful, agile and did not conform to any model of bike that anyone could find. It had to be either heavily modified or completely custom.
The only thing that barely salvaged the debacle was that while there were a lot of phone camera recordings coming out, on top of the news helicopter footage, barely a few seconds of clear footage was captured. Be it the news camera or the phone cameras of the people involved, none were able to focus correctly on the enigmatic rider as he dealt with the bikers one by one. Aside from a few scattered moments, every record had strange, unfocused distortion.
This made the few clear images get all the more attention. The strange spectacle of a biker seeming to spontaneously combust, burning up from the inside atop his bike, had been posted online and picked up by the news.
Another short scrap of phone footage was causing particular problems. By the time the news helicopter started recording, the rider’s cloak was black, trailing out behind him. Someone in one of the cars, though, had captured several seconds of the cloak lit up with shifting stars before their recording likewise became distorted. It was the only clear image of the rider, their unusual outfit, and their unique bike. Most importantly, it was the only clear image of the rider trailing a comet tail of stars behind him.
The inevitable comparisons to Batman Anna could live with, since it muddied the waters. After the footage of the cloak of stars appeared online, though, the figure was dubbed the Starlight Rider by the media. Immediate comparisons were drawn to the stories of an angel made of stars from just a few days earlier, the incident that became known as the Sydney Children’s Hospital Miracle. With the connection made between the SCH Miracle and the rolling gun fight, Anna’s job was made all the harder.
Vermillion not only had to work with her to keep a lid on things, but also bear the responsibility of the Blood Riders instigating the latest and most public debacle. As much as she hated her situation, she was glad not to be in his shoes. This whole affair could—and probably would—get her demoted. She had heard stories about the ways that the Cabal showed their displeasure. While they were only rumours, she did not envy Vermillion, whatever the truth. Her sympathy for the man did not mean she would let up in getting what she needed from the Cabal, however.
“Well?” she demanded of him.
For his part, Vermillion was having as bad an afternoon as Anna. A figure from the murky reaches of the Cabal’s upper levels had arrived to take charge, reducing Vermillion himself to a glorified message boy. It left him off the hook for cleaning up the huge mess, but also without a means to redeem himself after what happened under his watch. He would be held to account for the Network being handed the very last thing the Cabal wanted them to have: a justification to interfere with the Cabal’s affairs.
“A delegation of my people has agreed to come in to answer for the Blood Riders,” Vermillion said.
“When?”
“Our own investigation is ongoing. You will have answers when we have answers to give.”
“And how long will this investigation take?”
“We are confident we know who did this,” Vermillion said. “They have already been taken in hand and we are confirming the details now.”
“That quickly?”
“It was not a grand scheme. It was the ambition of a fool who did not realise what they were setting in motion.”
“And how do I know that you aren’t just drumming up a scapegoat?”
“As you know,” Vermillion said, “we do not like outside influence in our affairs.”
“You have always been fastidious about handling internal affairs privately,” Anna acknowledged.
“In this instance, however, we recognise that our internal affairs have significantly impacted the Network’s core tenets. I’ve been told that we’ll be handing the perpetrator completely over to you.”
“Perpetrator, singular? You expect us to believe that one person is responsible for all of it?”
“The person in question did try to rope in an ally,” Vermillion said. “As best we can determine, this prospective ally immediately saw how wrong the affair would go and tried to stop it. He was killed for trying to interfere. You don’t have to take our word for it, though. You can use whatever means are at your disposal to get the truth from the man in question.”
“Any means? You’re truly giving him up instead of just a supervised interrogation?”
“Normally, we protect our own,” Vermillion said, “but this man has violated our own fundamental rules. No one is happy about how these events have gone. You will not be expected to show this person the courtesy you would otherwise extend to our members. How you question him and what to do with him when you’re done is up to you.”
“And if we choose to give him back?”