‘No,’ I said curtly.
Terebell’s absence was beyond frustrating. She knew what time the meeting was due to start, and nothing could be more important than this. We had always expected Scion to increase the number of Senshield scanners – they had advertised their intention to install them – but we had also expected to be able to see them.
‘Thank you all for coming at such short notice,’ I said. ‘I’ll get straight to the point. Eliza just tried to use a cash machine, and an alarm went off. It seems a Senshield scanner was . . . built into it.’ I paused, letting them take it in. ‘We barely escaped.’
Breaths were drawn. Glym lowered his face into the palm of one hand.
‘The implications for the Mime Order could be catastrophic,’ I said. ‘If we can’t see the scanners, we can’t avoid them.’
‘In a cash machine.’ Maria scraped a hand through her hair. ‘Such an ordinary thing . . .’
‘This might explain the mysterious phone box,’ Nick murmured. ‘And the voyant who disappeared from the pharmacy.’
I had been too quick to brush off those reports. ‘This is the greatest threat to voyant-kind we’ve ever faced,’ I said. ‘Depending on how many hidden scanners have been installed, the first three orders – the only ones that can currently be detected – may have to go into hiding temporarily until our numbers are great enough to overcome the Vigiles. It could be too dangerous on the streets.’
‘No.’ Eliza stared at me. ‘Paige, we can’t just hide.’
‘As a fellow medium,’ Glym said, lifting his face, ‘I agree. Despite the danger, it would be impractical to freeze most of our foot-soldiers.’
‘It would also be impractical to allow Scion to capture them,’ I said. ‘We have voyants from the other orders to do the footwork.’
‘Not many.’
‘Enough,’ I said, but I could tell that they weren’t having this. Maria shook her head. ‘Fine. Then we’d better get damned good at avoiding the scanners. And it’s time we actually tackled the threat head-on. Hector buried his head in the sand about Senshield, but we have to face the facts about how serious this is. This is a god in a machine. An all-seeing eye.’
‘And you’re going to find it hard to blind it,’ Danica said.
She was sitting uncomfortably at the other end of the table with her arms folded. Her hair was a thatch of auburn frizzles, her eyes bloodshot from overtime. With her job in Scion’s engineering department, she was our best source of information on Senshield.
‘Dani,’ I said, ‘did you have any idea this was coming?’
‘I knew they planned to install the large scanners across the citadel, which is why I tried and failed to build a device to block our auras – we all knew that. We also knew that they would eventually target essential services. I did not know, however, that they had created a version that could be concealed.’
‘Let’s cut to the chase, then. Do you have any idea how we can get rid of them?’
‘Well, you can’t destroy or remove the large ones by hand. Aside from the fact that they’re clearly being watched, each scanner is welded in place.’
‘Do you know how they work?’ Glym asked Danica, tersely. ‘Do you know anything about them at all?’
‘Obviously.’
‘And?’
She shot him a dark look. If there was one thing Danica Pani? hated, it was being rushed.
‘According to the engineers’ grapevine, the scanners are powered by a central source of energy, which they call the core,’ she said, with deliberate slowness. ‘I don’t know what it is, but I do know that every single scanner is connected to it.’
‘So if we get rid of the core, we disable the whole thing,’I said.
‘Hypothetically. It would be like removing the battery.’
Tom stroked his beard. ‘And where do we find it?’
‘The Archon, surely,’ I said.
‘Not necessarily,’ Danica said. ‘Senshield is a ScionIDE project, so it’s most likely in a military facility.’
ScionIDE. Scion: International Defence Executive. Scion’s army. I had encountered them once before, thirteen years ago, when they had broken into Ireland through Dublin.
‘ScionIDE,’ Maria repeated.
I looked at her. Wearing an odd expression, she took a leather cigarette case from her jacket.
‘I didn’t know Senshield was a military brainchild. That’s very interesting.’ She removed a cigarette and lit up. ‘A link to the army gives its increased presence an even more sinister touch.’
A tremor scuttled across my abdomen. We had security measures in place to protect us from Vigiles and enemy Rephaim, but I hadn’t seriously considered the army as a prospective threat at this stage. Most of it was stationed in Scion’s overseas territories.
‘I’m all for going after Senshield, but if we bait the beast, we have to be prepared for one hell of a bite,’ Maria said, ‘and that bite might well include a certain Hildred Vance, Grand Commander of the Republic of Scion and authority maximum of ScionIDE.’
Tom muttered some choice words.
Vance . . . I had heard that name before.
‘Vance,’ Glym said. ‘She spearheaded the invasion of Bulgaria.’
‘That’s the one. The mastermind behind Ireland and the Balkans.’ Maria blew out a fine mist of smoke. ‘She may well be sponsoring Senshield’s expansion. For military use.’
Eliza’s knee bounced. ‘What does it mean if she comes here?’
Maria drew on her cigarette again, eyes closed. ‘It means,’ she said, ‘that we will be fighting one of the most intelligent and ruthless strategists alive. One who is used to dismantling cell-based rebel groups.’
There was a long silence. Our movement wasn’t strong enough to deal with the army yet.
‘Well,’ I said finally, ‘whether or not it is linked to Vance—’
I stopped when Warden appeared in the doorway, wearing his heavy black overcoat. The commanders observed him with apprehension, taking in the ice-blue irises, the statuesque build.
‘Apologies for my lateness, Underqueen,’ he said.
The colour of his eyes betrayed the reason for it – he had stopped to feed.
‘Where’s Terebell?’
‘She is engaged tonight.’
I was aware of his every movement as he took the seat beside Glym. His eyes were unnerving, reminding me of exactly what he had to do to survive, but I couldn’t resent him for it. For his sake, I briefly explained again about the hidden scanners and the threat they posed.
‘We could use your advice,’ I said, ‘if we’re going to have any chance of disabling Senshield. You were close to the Sargas. What do you know about it? About what powers it?’
‘Knowing the Sargas, the core is likely a form of ethereal technology, which harnesses the energy created by spirits,’ Warden said.
Tom raised his eyebrows. ‘Technology that uses spirits? I’ve never heard of such a thing.’
‘Even most Rephaim know precious little about it. The Sargas are the only family to have spliced the energy of the ?ther with human machinery. Many of my kind consider it obscene,’ Warden said. ‘Unfortunately, I do not know the workings of Senshield’s core.’