NewU Pt. 13

"Then what?" I asked. Miguel was shaking like a leaf. His whole body was trembling as the revelation worked itself around his mind.

"Then... then nothing. It took years to get back to some sort of normalcy after their deaths, but..." He looked at the screen again. "... but nobody could have imagined this."

I sat in silence for a moment, drumming a finger against my thigh, before speaking again. "So let me see if I have this straight. There is a peace treaty between the Conclave and the Inquisition that at least most people in the Conclave don't know about. There is some amount of high-level discussion between the two orders, which I'm certain is a fact unknown to most Evos considering they think you are still killing us. That dialogue involves the Conclave authorizing attacks against its own members, albeit ones who break the rules that they may not even be aware of. To add to that, there are attacks being carried out by members of your order that the rest of you seem to know nothing about and strongly believe shouldn't be happening. One of them was led by a Royal who apparently faked his own death and is now spending his newfound anonymity hunting Evos... well, was. And finally, as far as the rank-and-file Inquisitors are concerned, there is not only peace between you and the Conclave, but there is even a degree of cooperation. Am I missing anything?"

Miguel thought for a moment and shook his head.

"Okay... last thing," I said after nodding. "Tell me about your friends on the mountain." I asked, referring to the dozen red dots who had gathered at a villa every day in the northern mountains overlooking Malaga.

Miguel squinted, opened his mouth, and closed it again before looking over his shoulder and out the window... towards the mountains to the West. "I... who?"

I was starting to sense a pattern here. "Okay, let me try this another way. The Inquisitors who live in this city, do they all work here?"

"Erm..." Miguel scrunched his eyes up, thinking about it. Not being able to read their minds for these answers was kind of infuriating. "I think there are a few others, but not many. There is an older man who retired; I think he lives out toward Torremolinos somewhere. I think there are a few children, but they are all still in school. But otherwise, yes. It's a guaranteed job with good pay. Being an Inquisitor is all it really takes to get through the door. There isn't any reason not to work here."

"And are there many people not at work today? Called in sick, time off, whatever?"

"No, we don't really get sick, just like you. We sometimes get visitors from different parts of the country for administrative reasons. There are a few of those here, but no... there is nobody missing who would normally be here."

"And to your knowledge, there is no reason why a group of twelve Inquisitors would be meeting just outside the city without your knowledge?"

Miguel squinted at me again. "No, I..." His eyes suddenly widened at the implication. "You don't think..."

"That's exactly what I think." I stood from my chair. The room had fallen silent. Most of them had caught onto the danger they could potentially be in. If there were a separate, rogue group of Inquisitors - capable of mounting the sort of attack that had hit the party and being led by a Royal, no less - It was safe to assume that they were watching the rest of the Inquisition too. "You need to contact your superiors. A copy of the video has been left on your systems, but they need to be aware of what is happening. You can also tell them that I will be wanting a chat in the very immediate future! Something is going on, and I am going to find out what it is, but at the moment, it looks like it involves secretive parts of both of our orders."

"Wait... why do you think the Conclave is involved?" Miguel asked as he stood as well.

"Because someone in there is talking to someone in your leadership and chose to keep that secret. That is the best-case scenario... The worst is that we are being attacked by a renegade faction of Inquisitors in clear violation of the peace treaty, and they didn't think to ask you why. Instead, they allowed the attack on the party, perhaps even supplying the details, that got more than sixty members of the Conclave killed, not to mention about a hundred of yours. Someone, somewhere, is lying. There is just too much going on for it to be a coincidence or a misunderstanding."

"You think someone is trying to restart the war?" Miguel asked, that paleness of his face never really leaving.

"It's worse than that. To the Conclave and the Sect, as far as their members are concerned, it never ended!"

*******

A few hours later, I was grinding my teeth again. I had left the office after giving Miguel a way for him or his superiors to contact me directly. I also made it clear that I would not be willing to wait for long. The Malaga office had been spared the full measure of my wrath by the virtue of my willingness to give them the benefit of the doubt. If the Inquisition wanted to keep that benefit, I was expecting them to work with me to get to the bottom of this. Uri was going to be getting the same ultimatum. At the moment, I didn't know who I could trust and was defaulting back to refusing to trust any of them. Given how pissed off I was feeling right now, getting on my bad side was a very dangerous place to be.

I looked back up from the note in my hand and at the fire. The villa where those red dots had been congregating was burning; it had already been burning when I arrived. Flames were roaring out of the windows, and part of the roof had started to collapse. The cream-painted exterior wall was charred and sooted, scared by the inferno, and the plastic seating next to the front door was melting under its fury. The heat being thrown off the flames was incredible. Any hope of finding something useful or incriminating was currently burning along with it. I had made the choice in anger to attack the bigger target first. I had assumed that the Inquisitors in the office were all guilty and I was after a body count. The higher, the better. I had considered coming here first. The red dots had still been here when I was in Constitution Square waiting for my moment, I had checked.

Now they were gone.

Of course, they were fucking watching. The first rule of counter-intelligence: Know what your enemy knows.

Pinned to a telegraph pole just to the side of the house had been a plain white envelope. With only one road in or out, it was impossible to miss. I looked back down at it and read it again, the growl rumbling aggressively from my chest. I was angry... I was more than angry. I was furious at myself for rushing in without even checking this place first. I was livid at my real enemy getting away... but I was a raging ball of incandescent fury at what was written on the note in my hand.

Hello Pete,

You are an abomination! We do God's work, and you killed our chosen leader. You murdered our King during his holy mission. For this, you and all those you love, will die slowly.

We shall see you soon.

They wanted a war... Well, I was going to fucking give them one!

********

And that's it for chapter 13.

The plot thickens for our hapless and increasingly confused hero. Webs of lies and long vaulted secrets stand between him and those responsible for the death of Faye. With the list of people he can trust and the places he can turn growing shorter by the moment, how will he know who is friend and who is foe. Stay tuned to find out.

Stories are released to a schedule which can be found on my profile. The next chapter of the Island will be submitted on Monday, and the newest chapter of this flagship series will be submitted next Thursday. As it stands, I do not foresee any interruption of that schedule over the Christmas period, but there may be a delay in the time it takes lit to post them to you.

Please feel free to rate and comment as you see fit. Authors thrive on the feedback of our readers.

In the meantime. You are all awesome.

Nova.