Asano Vilge had an auditorium fe meetings. Jason sat quietly at the back, watg a presentation by Clive, Audrey and a pair of biologists from the Cabal and the work. With them were officers from the CIA and their Australian terpart, ASIS. They were outlining everything that had been discovered about the blood oaks, from the o firmation that there were more of them. The results were a bination of experimental records, recovered unications and w with samples. Along with samples from the b, they had been w with what had left of the blood oak they had killed.

  Jason’s instincts were to stick to people he knew and trusted when dealing with the vampires, but he khat wasn’t practical. He simply didn’t have the bodies for simultaneous strikes, coordinated across the globe. When the main had been vampire lords, he would have sidered splitting up the visitors from Pallimustus, putting ea charge of a team from the Asano ’s impressive roster of silver-rankers. They even had a gold-ranker, although that was staying tightly under s for the moment.

  The addition of the blood oaks ged the equation siderably. Splitting up teams became much more dangerous, and they would o rely on the people of Earth a lot more. They cked the power and experience of Pallimustus adventurers, so making sure they uood the threat was critical. To that end, the auditorium was filled with essence users and operation coordinators. They came from every gover and magical fa that could field a gold ranker, or at least a ti of capable silvers. The training programs initiated by Farrah and refined by Rufus had been taken up around the world. The old guard of monster core users were slowly but surely being superseded.

  The initial pn, to alpha-strike the vampire strongholds and seize as many nuclear devices as possible, was no longer viable. There was no doubt that the vampires would have caught wind of it to some degree, but after the Melbour, there was no more surprise to be had. The Australian Prime Minister was nailing that coffin shut as he ran a media blitz talking about terrorist vampires. He was desperately attempting to spin the narrative in the face of domestic political pressure and iional nation.

  The new pn was still being talked about as a variant of the old oill based on coordinated raids across the p, but with less stealth and more overwhelming force. The reality was, however, that there would be no mass-rush against the vampires while their nuclear arsenal remained an active threat.

  An ASIS agent, Natalie Park, has been assigo Jason as liaison from the Australian security services. A silver-ranker, she had been a young girl at the time of Jason’s st visit. Trained up using on Farrah and Rufus’ methods, she was a silver-ranker with no trace of cores in her system. She ehrough the rear of the auditorium and crouched behind Jason’s seat.

  “They’re almost ready for you, Mr Asano.”

  “Thank you, Natalie.”

  Jason got up ahe building for another, nearby. inally it had been the mayoral residence, bined with some administrative space. It was currently occupied by Lenora an, and served as unication hub for the iional forces present. The Ameris had installed a magitech fereng devi, appropriately, the feren. Jason had been told that it was as secure as remote unication could be, at least for now. Iably, the teology would be leaked, copied and cracked, but until then, the rgest vulnerability was the huma.

  Although it was far from his field of expertise, Jason’s mind had been on magitech sinning his return to Earth. There was no way for his home po catch up to the magic of Pallimustus. Even disregarding the millennia of magical history, Earth’s average magic levels were a step or two lower, across the board. Those levels had risen, but high-magies were fewer and smaller than oher world. There were even a handful of magical deserts where gold-rankers had trouble visiting without gulping down spirit s.

  Jason’s hope was that magitech would level the pying field. Pallimustus was starting to adopt more teological principles, but it was slow going, and mostly the work of Travis Noble. He had used the traits of teology to do something magic didn’t excel at: cheap, long-distanunication. Oh, teology has many bottlenecks, and a p full of people now turning to magic to overe them.

  Much of the st few decades had bee using magic to circumvent key chokepoints in teological adva, such as a ck of effit superductors. That research had leapt ahead i decade, ohe world had gotteo magid begun rec from the monster waves. As a result, teology in multiple fields had rocketed ahead of what Jason had known. Things had advanced so fast that the world was still catg up, socially and politically. The Middle east, always a hotbed, had beore votile as most of the world abandoned fossil fuels.

  As Natalie led Jason into the feren, he looked to the example of magitech it tained. A ical device had been installed on the tre of the table, with trol panels at ead. A man was sitting at the head of the table, with a puter tablet plugged into the panel.

  “They’re calibrating it now, Mr Asano,” Natalie told Jason.

  “I’m surprised you’re plugged into it,” Jason said. “Shouldn’t everything be wireless, at this point?”

  “Sure, as long as you trust the wireless work you’re using,” the tech said, and poi the devi the tre of the table. “No one is going to tap into this thing until someone reverse engineers it. My tablet, though, is more vulnerable. A hard e is more secure.”

  “Fair enough.”

  “Shouldn’t be more than a moment, Mr Asano” the tech said. “Big fan, by the way. I have a poster from back when you had the silver eyes, not those e and blue ones you’re rog now. They’re cool.”

  “Thanks.”

  The tech was dressed iandard IT uniform of jeans and a t-shirt with some pop culture refence Jason didn’t uand.

  “Damn,” Jason muttered.

  “I’m sure he’ll have it set up swiftly, Mr Asano.”

  “Not that,” Jason said. “I just realised that there’s fifteen years of popur culture I’m never going to catch up on. And people thought my references were outdated before. Have they rebooted Knight Rider agai?”

  “You mean that show about the car possessed by the ghost of David Hasselhoff?” Natalie asked.

  “David Hasselhoff died?”

  “Not that I’m aware of.”

  “He hit silver rank a couple of months ago,” the tei said.

  “Then why would they make a show about his ghost possessing a car?” Jason asked. “Was it his character from the old series?”

  “he tei said. “He ying himself. They supposedly killed him off in the show, and he did the voice for the car. Then they revealed ihird season that he was alive the whole time and the car was a magitech AI synthesising his voice. The show dropped off pretty hard after that. Never got a fourth season.”

  “I should check that out. Do they have a box set of the series?”

  “A box set?” the tech asked. “Like one of those Japanese lunches?”

  “Right. They probably don’t do those anymore.”

  “No, there’s bento pces all over,” the tech said. “It’s a trend right now.”

  “Never mind. Shade, remio look up the Knight Rider reboot.”

  “No.”

  Jason burst out ughing as Natalie looked at him askance.

  “All dohe tei said and poi one of the chairs. “That one’s yours, Mr Asano.”

  “Thank you, Nathan.”

  The tei raised his eyebrows.

  “You know my name?”

  “I’m keeping a close eye on my surroundings, Mr Burnsleigh. Especially these surroundings. Good lu your date, by the way.”

  “Are you kidding? When I tell him I was talking to you about Knight Rider, he’s going to freak out.”

  Jason flicked something through the air. Nathan caught it and looked at it in his hand. It was a silver with Jason’s fa it.

  “Wow,” Nathan said. “That is a huge .”

  “Seriously?” Jason pined.

  Nathan shuffled out the door as two more people arrived. Boris o Jason and took a seat as directed by Natalie. Li , a ese gold ranker, stopped in the doorway.

  “It’s been a long time,” Jason said.

  “Mr Asano—”

  “Since you threw a o an astral space because an interdimensional alien told you it would get rid of me.”

  visibly swallowed.

  “It’s a funny old world,” Jason said. “Shako — that was his name, if he old you. Shako’s in this weird prison that’s also a chair. It’s all a bit metaphorical, but I actually sat on that chair, briefly. And now, here we are, talking about nuclear ons all ain.”

  “Mr Asano—”

  “I’m going to let it go, Mr Li. Dwelling on the past gets us nothing, and you waiting for me to kill you in the night is terproductive.”

  “Mr Asano, Mr Li,” Natalie interjected. “You should take your seats. They’re about to begin.”

  The two men moved to their indicated positions and, around thirty seds ter, the devi the table hummed to life. It fell silent after a moment and holographic representations of people started filling the empty seats around the table, oer another.

  Jason took a slow, calming breath as high-level gover officials, directors of intelligence agencies and heads of magical fas appeared. It was a tight circle, formed to address the vampire threat, and it included Jason and his grandmother. Boris was one of several Cabal representatives. Natalie did not stay, ASIS being represented remotely by her head of agency, Directeneral Ma.

  The meeting began with the CIA director Barstow summarising the altered situation sihe group had decided on the previous pn.

  “In short, Directeneral Ma, your Prime Minister has bent us over the table,” she said. “It was already te aion to expeformation tai, but we at least had a shot at taking most of the nuclear devices off the table. Sihe Melbourne i, your head of gover has screamed the words ‘vampire’ and ‘nuclear bomb’ into every microphohat hove into view. That is not what I would describe as an ideal approach to operational security.”

  “I would point out,” Ma said, “that if the i in Melbourne had not taken pce, we wouldn’t know about the blood creatures at all.”

  “And that excuses your being blindsided by arajudicial operation your Prime Miaged by w around you and yanisation, to your apparent obliviousness? How exactly did he mao bypass his own security service, Directeneral?”

  “If I may,” said Chief Collier of the United Kingdom Secret Intelligence Service.

  “Go ahead, Sir Christopher,” Director Barstow told him, to the visible relief of the Australian.

  “We are all aware of the unfortuuation with the Australian Prime Minister,” Chief Collier said. “We have all also been briefed, I assume, oeps being taken to remedy the local political turmoil. Given the difficulty in assembling this particur group, perhaps we should uake the discussion of the steps, for which we have gathered, rather than rehash recriminations. However well-earhey may be.”

  Jason watched the hologram of Barstow reach for her gsses, only to find them not there. Essence users didn’t need corrective lenses, but those who had worn them for years still found themselves moving to adjust them out of lifelong habit.

  “You’re right, of course, Sir Christopher,” Barstow said. “The question is, what is our move? We have our people getting ready for heavier strikes, but pulling the trigger on the operation, as it stands, would be a disaster. Nuclear detonations, tree mourning people into puppets. My analysts have been gaming out sarios and everything turns out very ugly.”

  “Our people drew the same clusions,” Barstow said. “Mr Ketnd, Mr Asano. I’m hoping that your outside perspectives offer us options that we fail to see.”

  “Regretfully, no,” Jason said. “What we have is essentially the same problem as before, where our best option is iation with the vampire lord, Elizabeth. Unfortunately, she now occupies a signifitly better position to iate from, depending on her ability to e the blood oaks.”

  “Do we have a sense of how much trol she has over them?” Li asked.

  “Not as of yet,” Ma said. “My people and the CIA have been going over every record of unicatiorieved from the Melbourne location. We know that Elizabeth was in trol of the program to create the blood oaks, but not how much trol she has over the mohemselves.”

  “I tell you that the vampires on site weren’t able to trol it,” Jason said. “It killed and used them, just like it did the humans down there. If Elizabeth cims she trol these things, she’ll o prove it.”

  “I would point out,” Boris said, “that Directeneral Ma did make a valid point earlier. If not for the Melbourne i, we would be oblivious to the danger posed by the blood oaks. Having that revealed is bad for the vampires as a whole, but good for Elizabeth’s iating position. Is there a possibility that the Prime Minister rodded, perhaps even facilitated in his as? I have nothing but jecture on this, but I believe it warrants sideration and, perhaps, iigation.”

  Talks tinued, but no new clusions were reached. The various anisations resolved to coordinate further information gathering in hope of improving their outlook, but the events in Melbourne had been a disaster. In the end, the hologram device was shut down, leaving Jason, Li and Boris in a room. looked at Jason, saw the expression that was returned and made himself scarce, after politely exg himself.

  “You did well,” Boris said. “Keep this up and they may actually look at you like a statesman and not the guy who’s at the table because he’s a scary demigod who’ll kill them all if they make him angry.”

  “Let’s see, after their reps all get here for the private universe tour.”

  “That might get them ba the scary demigod side,” Boris aowledged.