Mark Teppo - Heartland

"Markham flew in from Seattle," Marielle supplied. "Where-"

"Portland, actually," I interjected.

That distinction went over like someone had just discovered a dead body in one of the cupboards.

"Interesting," Lafoutain said finally. He turned to Delacroix, as if that was all that needed to be said at this time. "What can we do for you, Jean-Pierre?" The dismissal was inherent in his words, a steely command given by a man who, for all his bluster and outward-facing gastronomical zeal, was still a high-ranking officer in the organization.

The younger man waved a hand toward the dining room. "They're chasing ghosts. They're actually listening to Chieradeen now. I needed a drink more than I needed to hear his theory about the Bavarian Conspiracy again." His tone was slightly petulant, as if he knew he was intruding on a private conversation, but wanted us to know that he didn't care much for the snubbing.

"We've lost Cristobel," Lafoutain said.

"Oh," Delacroix said. "Damn." His smooth face went through a gamut of emotions, and he suddenly looked much older than the thirty-odd years I guessed him to be. "If he was the Visionary, that's four."

Lafoutain nodded. "Yes. What about the other possibilities?"

"Nothing concrete." Delacroix shook his head, trying to hide his exhaustion. "All his paranoid bullshit aside, it's looking like Chieradeen's suggestion about the Mason might actually be solid. No one has been able to confirm contact with him for several weeks now. The scryers have all vanished along with their master, and the Thaumaturge is still. . " He stopped and shrugged.

Lafoutain tapped the newly opened bottle with the cheese knife. "Tell them the news about Cristobel. Assume he was the Visionary, and redo the charts. It'll distract the others from Chieradeen," he said. Delacroix nodded absently, and took the bottle with him as he went back to the dining room to relay the news.

Without a word, I went to the wine cabinet for another bottle. Mainly to give myself a chance to process these conversational scraps. They thought the Mason was out of the picture, and had been since before Philippe came to Seattle. Yet Cristobel had said they'd only lost one Architect previously. The Hermit. Not the Mason.

If he was the Visionary, that's four.

They didn't know Cristobel's secret, and for the time being, I was going to keep it to myself. Until I had a chance to figure out the field.

The Mason was a master at geomancy, the sort of art that could create the oubliette around the chapel. And the soulquake as well. That wasn't the sort of artificing done in a minute. The whole assault was meticulously planned, well in advance. Move quickly, neutralize your opponent's home base advantages, and deliver a killing blow that didn't deplete any of your own special assets. Contrary to Lafoutain's belief, it could be done with conventional weaponry. Quite handily.

It was a raid that gave its planner deniability, provided no one survived, and the fact that non-magi were used for the strike team implied a scorched-earth sort of end result. Everyone dies, the strike team included.

But such deniability wasn't all that useful to a man who wasn't there. If the Mason had been gone for some time, then who had called for the strike? And why make it look like he was involved?

Unless, the Chorus suggested with a sly whisper, he went underground. Before the killing started.

Pulling out a bottle of wine from the severely depleted rack, I returned to the counter, mulling over that option. The strike was pre-planned, and if it was set to go with a phone call, then it could have been triggered by a blind relay: someone who didn't know who or why they were calling.

But someone had been Watching through at least one of the assassins. A remote viewer. Someone who had triggered the spell when they were sure of maximum yield. Was it more than one Architect? Was the Mason supplying the tools and the men, and someone else was providing the insight into the remote locations?

That question suggested some organization to the Opposition, and with organization came some sort of planning. I may not know who the Opposition was entirely, but I did know they were operating-even in their own limited cells-under orders. And those orders had to come from some sort of hierarchical structure.

Intuitively, I knew I was on the right track with this line of thought, and while the presence of the Chorus increased my reliance on intuition and whispered suggestion, I felt there was a very definite hand working behind the scenes. Someone who could twist thread as easily as the Old Man could. Someone-or some cadre of like-minded peers-was making us dance to a tune of their making.

And we were. While I trusted Marielle, and her relationship with Lafoutain was relaxed enough that it seemed like we were with the good guys, this ad-hoc safe house seemed like an act of desperation, a plan that was thrown together at the last minute. The sort of decision made in the heat of the moment, without proper consideration for all the ways it could go wrong. There was something amiss in this place, but I couldn't quite put my finger on it.

Four Architects dead. How many left? The Chorus twisted around the question. Three, I thought. Delacroix had mentioned them a few minutes ago: the Mason, the Scryer, and the Thaumaturge. Was the Mason working alone, or was the conspiracy broader than that?

Who stood to gain the most?

La Societe Lumineuse had a pyramid-shaped hierarchical organization. One man at the top, hundreds at the bottom, and each layer fed into the one above it. One Hierarch, supported by seven Architects who were drawn from a field of twenty-one Preceptors. Each Preceptor sponsored a Protector-Witness-his eyes on the ground, so to speak-in addition to having a coterie of Viators-warriors well-versed in the way of magick. Below the Viators were the Travelers and Journeymen. Seven ranks, each of the lower rank having seven sub-degrees within it. Highly ordered, highly stratified, and everyone knew their place within the structure of the pyramid. Power flowed up, and the bottom rank was constantly jostling against their betters in an effort to make room for one of them to advance.

The way to force the issue was ritual combat. Properly declared and Witnessed, it was an acknowledged power grab, a calling out by juniors of their betters, and other than the standardized trials for rank and degree, it was the only way to advance in the organization. Ritus concursus . The right of might to declare itself.

However, this sort of willy-nilly leapfrogging wasn't the way the top of the pyramid was organized. The Architects, secretly chosen by the Hierarch, were his named successors. Cristobel's flip response to my jibe about the Secret Masters of the Illuminati aside, the identity of the Architects was protected so that they weren't targets for the overly eager and impetuous. If the Hierarch grew too ill to fulfill his duties as the Silent Guardian Who Waits, then he was replaced by one of his Architects. They, in turn, elevated a fellow Preceptor into the power vacuum of the empty Architect spot. And so on down the pyramid.

Cristobel had likened the assault on the chapel to the Blitzkrieg of Nazi Germany, that swift and decisive surgical strike into the enemy's heartland before they knew it was coming. If the Opposition had known who Cristobel was, then it followed that they knew the identity of the others as well. Send out synchronized strike teams, hit all your targets at one time, and you ended up with a situation much like the one we were currently in.

Lafoutain scratched his beard. "You're thinking awfully hard over there, M. Markham. I can smell the neurons burning."

If the Architects were supposed to fill in for the Hierarch, and were his chosen ones, then why had Philippe come to me? Why had the pyramid been shattered? Why me, Old Man?